1. It is not your emergency.
2. Always look ahead of you, behind you, above you, around you and below you.
3. If its warm, wet, sticky and someone else's, don't touch it.
4. Never forget that you are first and foremost a provider of care.
5. Check your gear religiously and thoroughly.
6. Sleep, pee and eat at any given opportunity, because it may be hours before you have that opportunity again.
7. Don't recap needles, get in the firing path of an airbag, piss anyone off, or put water on burning magnesium.
8. Anyone can be combative. Even your sweet lil' grandma can rip through kerlix and beat your ass given the right conditions.
9. Your status as an officer is secondary to your status as a regular member.
10. People do not always go missing during normal business hours; in fact they usually go missing at 2 am.
11. Don't drink and drive. Don't drive tired. Don't use lights and sirens unless you absolutely have to. Everyone else on the road is a complete moron that will hit you given the chance.
12. Learn Spanish.
13. 5% of EMS is about saving lives. The other 95% is about frequent fliers, paperwork, drunk idiots, drugged-up idiots, sober idiots, toothaches, headaches, pneumonia, cleaning up poop/vomit/urine/etc, and anything else boring, disgusting, and/or ridiculous you can imagine.
14. Document everything.
15. Sick kids should always scare the shit out of you, no matter how "okay" they look at the moment.
16. Priorities, greatest to lowest: yourself, your partner/team, the patient, family, bystanders.
17. Always have at least one way out of any location.
18. You will have to save the lives of people who probably don't deserve to live.
19. Always prepare for the worst case scenario.
20. This is the hardest job you will ever love.
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4 comments:
Stumbled onto your blog and had a great time perusing your musings. Here's a couple more tidbits for your list:
Air goes in and out, blood goes around and around, any deviation is a bad thing.
Asystole is a very stable rhythm.
There is no such thing as asystole, pre-hospital it's: "very fine v-fib"
In the hospital it's: "a sustained sinus pause"
A sucking chest wound is natures way of telling you to slow down.
Keep up the posting!
B.J. is my best friend. No, really he is. We grew up together. Just ask crzegrl. And he stole all my best lines. That bum. I like this post, it really sums up EMS. But as a firefighter you can use water on magnesium. Just have to use alot of water! After the cool bright flash, the water will start to cool the magnesium. Take the heat away and the fire goes out. We used to see this alot on burning V.W.'s.... Love the post. Shepp
I'm glad you commented on my blog- I'm having a great time reading yours while I'm supposed to be preparing a presentation on gynecologic emergencies. Your list is right on. I'd just add the unfortunate addendum to number 18 that many of the patients who deserve to have their lives saved don't have insurance that covers the necessary life-saving treatment. But that's not too much of an issue in EMS and emergency medicine, lucky for us. Keep up the great writing!
Don't be scared of kids. Have a healthy respect for how quickly they can turn a corner, but don't be scared.
Because when you're scared?
They're scared.
Have fun, smile, play around, make jokes. Because a kid that isn't having fun? Ain't being treated right.
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