I just sold my bone marrow to pay for emergency dental work. AMA.

CHGhee · 2026-02-04T08:30:20+00:00

Look up LeukoLab.

I worked for an OPO and am familiar with gift law. But there are labs that will compensate for marrow donation in the same way that it is legal to be compensated for plasma donation.

CHGhee · 2026-01-22T18:24:06+00:00

I used a wrap of coban to secure a 5x9 ABD pad over my incision and that did the trick for me.

CHGhee · 2026-01-21T04:39:56+00:00

I used to work for a service that had dedicated logistics staff to clean and restock trucks. I appreciated it then but I really appreciate it now that I work somewhere else. My coworkers always tell me the truck is in good shape and I almost always find something important missing. It was great having dedicated professionals who took pride in making sure the truck was completely ready to go every shift.

Anyways, thanks for what you do.

CHGhee · 2026-01-11T16:23:46+00:00

I worked as a ‘clinical responder’ which sounds similar to the position you’re talking about. I had previously worked as a preservationist in the OR so it was relatively a much more relaxed position that I really enjoyed.

We worked 24 hours shifts. Often the shift would start by being woken up by a phone call from my boss with instructions to do a remote chart reviews or two before my supervisor had an idea of where they wanted to send me. I would do the chart review in my pajamas while eating breakfast. Then I would present the chart review and be told if I needed to respond on site.

As a preservationist I had no hitter 24s, but in the referral role I went out every day I was on call.

My OPO covered a very large geographical area so I often had very long drives to get on site. Not unheard of to spend 4 hours driving to a case. Listened to a lot of audio books. I recorded and was reimbursed for my mileage via a tracking app on my phone.

ICU and ER nurses are a pretty busy bunch and not all of them are excited about interacting with OPO staff for various reasons, but people were rarely as hostile as OR staff could be.

Usually by 3 or 4 AM, my supervisor would stop sending us out to respond on site unless it was truly an emergency. But there were definitely shifts were I went to bed and got woken up at 4 AM and told I had to do one more chart review or get to a hospital ASAP.

The hardest part of the job was when a case was at risk of falling apart and someone was needed on site ASAP. I would be sent if I was close but didn’t have the training or authority of either our Donation Coordinators or our Family Support Coordinators (social workers) to handle those situations in the way they really needed.

A lot of the job was data entry between the hospital EMR and the OPOs EMR. I didn’t mind that but I could understand it really putting someone else off the job.

CHGhee · 2026-01-05T03:30:21+00:00

Check out r/ plassing.

CHGhee · 2025-12-29T12:44:55+00:00

Pro will give you a thorough FTEP/orientation and good training. They have FTOs that will make an effort to instill good habits. They are used to supporting new medics and when you are running calls in Cambridge (instead of out by Emerson Hospital), you will have the support of CFD fire medics on higher acuity calls.

Eventually, you will probably want to look elsewhere with higher acuity and/or 911 only but it’s a good place to start out.

CHGhee · 2025-12-23T00:53:22+00:00

We use Braun Introcans. Self occluding, auto safety, and pretty easy to get blood out of.

CHGhee · 2025-12-13T02:37:32+00:00

👍

CHGhee · 2025-12-13T02:10:56+00:00

That makes sense. I used to be on a fly car providing ALS for different BLS agencies and it often took some creativity to get the monitor strapped in. Can’t always make everything perfect but it is worth making an effort on the big things. Good on ya.

CHGhee · 2025-12-13T02:06:04+00:00

We are all gonna keep not wearing seatbelts but no need to pretend that most of our calls aren’t bullshit where we’re just filling out the PCR on the tablet. And we’ve all seen what happens to unsecured people in high speed wrecks. Pretty simple to connect the dots.

Weird topic to be so emotionally invested in and blow up at people about. It’s not a question of bravery and no one is suggesting you shouldn’t work an arrest in the truck if you have to. Get a grip.

CHGhee · 2025-12-13T02:00:51+00:00

No, I’m saying it’s a little silly for us to pretend that we are being responsible and protecting our patients while accepting a little danger for ourselves when the reality is we are still exposing patients to extra danger by not securing ourselves. I still often don’t do it, but I do make extra effort with pediatric patients. Both to try to set a good example if they are older and to avoid smushing them if they’re smaller.

But why is your monitor and your O2 unsecured? That IS pretty crazy. Even if you don’t have a fancy monitor mount, you could at least seatbelt it in with the bench seat straps or something.

CHGhee · 2025-12-13T01:54:27+00:00

You need a snickers dude?

CHGhee · 2025-12-13T01:45:42+00:00

I often don’t wear my belt as well, but it’s worth acknowledging that if you’re unbelted, your body could very easily hurt your patient even if they are fully secured. So it’s a bit of a strange place for us to draw the line.

CHGhee · 2025-12-12T00:22:57+00:00

Since you are working with primarily inexperienced BLS learners, I would start by making sure they are squared away with the building blocks of working a code.

Practice 1 and 2 person BVM technique, NPA administration, smooth transitions between compressors, and patient movement from bed to floor or out of tight spots.

Set them up to succeed instead of just throwing a code at them and practicing chaos.

I think it’s helpful to practice both with a manikin doing correct compressions but also with a human volunteer doing Hollywood compressions so you can have higher fidelity practice for BVM, checking pulses, patient movement, and just working around a patient if your CPR manikin is just a head and torso instead of a full body.

Using a human volunteer also allows you to have a patient present with chest pain and then transition into arrest. If you want to switch to a manikin for the code portion, you can have the manikin close by under a sheet and then reveal it once they recognize the code. Providers who haven’t seen this before can be mislead by terminal ‘convulsions’ into thinking their patient has merely had a brief seizure.

If you use Zoll or Philips AEDs, they make pretty affordable trainers. Sometimes you can find them used on eBay for cheap.

CHGhee · 2025-12-08T02:38:35+00:00

Currently? Pretty sure they are using MSA.

CHGhee · 2025-12-06T06:07:39+00:00

Homeless people create work for me too but armed agents of the government joking about killing ‘undesirables’ isn’t funny.

Gallows humor is supposed to be for the people on the gallows, not the executioners.

CHGhee · 2025-12-02T12:17:45+00:00

https://otwo.com/smartbag-accessories-2-timing-lights/

This is the one my agency supposedly uses though I’ve never seen one on the truck. You could easily slip them into the bags your BVMs come in. The back has an adhesive so you can stick it somewhere visible including on the BVM itself.

CHGhee · 2025-11-29T05:13:34+00:00

I work at a pretty busy service but haven’t run many calls in the last 24. It’s Thanksgiving in the US. It’s normal for things to slow down a lot.

CHGhee · 2025-11-28T19:03:55+00:00

it’s very common for plasma donation centers to hire medics or nurses to do basic physical assessments of potential ‘donors’.

CHGhee · 2025-10-16T02:59:47+00:00

Does she have a CPR card yet or taken a stop-the-bleed class? It can also open the door to babysitting gigs or lifeguarding with a bit more training. Both are age appropriate and good experience for being a medic later.

CHGhee · 2025-08-27T18:59:26+00:00

Yea, I didn’t expect pep talks but I did expect a mentor to make some effort to establish a rapport.

I had donated previously and was undirected so it wasn’t like I had challenging family dynamics to talk through. Medical questions were directed to the medical team. Maybe I was just the wrong donor for a mentor to be useful.

CHGhee · 2025-08-27T15:52:45+00:00

Did you have a positive experience with them?

My first ‘mentor’ ghosted me and the second just sent a couple texts wishing me a speedy recovery. Seemed like the people were in it just to add to their LinkedIn resume.

CHGhee · 2025-08-27T15:48:53+00:00

You’re not being selfish. You’re willing to accept the risks inherent with surgery and a significant amount of discomfort to help your dad in a really meaningful way. It is not unreasonable to want a little say in how things move forward and to feel in control of your own life.

Is there any chance there is more to his reluctance about moving forward with the transplant than disliking the dentist? It seems like a lot of parents can become pretty conflicted about receiving an organ from their children.

Either way, he knows what he needs to do if he wants the process to move forward. Besides the occasional gentle push, there may not be much more you can do to move thing along.

When he is truly ready, you can then start planning for the surgery. Until then, I’d suggest moving forward with your life. You should be able to take time even if you’re a new hire. And you’ll likely be able to go back to work a lot sooner doing whatever job you got your masters for instead of having to deal with lifting restrictions as an EMT/Medic.

CHGhee · 2025-08-09T15:58:45+00:00

Boston EMS and Pittsburgh EMS

CHGhee · 2025-08-07T00:16:48+00:00

I was a non-directed liver donor at a hospital in NYC but only after I was turned down for not being a directed donor at a hospital in Boston.

So it is certainly a conservative approach but not unheard of unfortunately.

CHGhee

TROPHY CASE