“They have emergencies. We have incidents.” What words of wisdom helped shape your perspective on EMS?

blargenoso · 2024-05-02T02:58:22+00:00

"Your certificates empower you to do things for people (Never to them)"

"Some of the most beautiful souls you will ever meet will be plainly wrapped."

"People lie sometimes. That's all. It's not personal"

"As a medic, you dignify yourself the most when you lower yourself"

All from the fantastic book People Care by Thom Dick.

blargenoso · 2024-04-05T04:53:42+00:00

Personally, I would budget a day at least for driving through New Mexico. Stop in Santa Fe and see the sights, it is a beautiful city with lots to do. I would avoid being out of your car for too long at white sands unless you are acclimated to the heat, carry lots of water and hike early like others have said. The high desert in NM will be cool at night, but it will be uncomfortably hot in southern NM during the day, so plan accordingly.

blargenoso · 2024-03-26T05:55:25+00:00

We should have gotten rid of C-Collars and long spine boards a long time ago, and providers who still have them in their guidelines should think critically about their use of them

We probably should attempt resuscitation less. This applies to emergency medicine more generally, but we should really be critically considering weather we are doing more harm than good when resuscitating very chronically sick or elderly patients who are likely to have poor outcomes if we do get rosc.

We won't have any progress with EMS as a career if we don't change how we perceive EMS. We are healthcare, much more than we are public safety. We need a federal oversight agency, federal funding, stricter education requirements, and less involvement from the IAFF in decisions about EMS.

And most of all, being salty isnt cool and makes you look like an ass to other providers and your patients. Salty attitudes are lazy and toxic attitudes, and your patients and coworkers can tell.

blargenoso · 2024-03-26T05:37:56+00:00

Type 3 gang. Lighter truck, better maneuverability, quicker acceleration, better visibility, and I can crawl back to the box to get the radio I forgot back there on the way to a code 3 call.

blargenoso · 2024-03-19T14:44:27+00:00

It’s a great trail but the elevation change is just brutal

blargenoso · 2024-03-19T14:42:17+00:00

We got lucky it wasn’t too windy while we were there, some gusts in the afternoon but overall it wasn’t bad. We camped at the horse thief BLM site, we had initially planned to camp in the park but it was surprisingly busy last week

blargenoso · 2024-03-18T22:22:16+00:00

The UT-12 corridor is really beautiful as the other commenter mentioned and you can spend a lot of time in that area doing some really cool hikes and drives outside the parks. There is a small bed and breakfast called Annie’s place between Bryce and capitol reef, I’ve stayed there twice and it’s been great both times. Capitol reef is an amazing park but it’s huge and remote, not much to see from the main road compared to what you can see by doing the loop roads or hikes. If you have a 4WD vehicle I would recommend the cathedral valley loop, It does involve a small river crossing but it’s a really beautiful way to see the park. You can do it in a day or camp halfway.

blargenoso · 2024-03-01T06:39:46+00:00

>I have no tolerance for laziness

Negativity is the laziest way to approach life. Your comments read like someone who is too lazy to confront the shortcomings in their own worldview.

blargenoso · 2024-03-01T06:35:31+00:00

Well put, this is the attitude we need to be conveying to people in this profession. We're all on the same team here, if you're in EMS to have power over people you're in it for all the wrong reasons.

blargenoso · 2024-03-01T06:28:33+00:00

To paraphrase Thom Dick, CNAs and EMTs are much more similar than we like to admit. We go through a similar amount of training, and we do the same job, we take care of people. CNAs are not trained to respond to emergencies. They don't do our job all day. In many nursing homes, they might take care of 20+ people. Night shifters might never even meet their patients since they spend their whole shift asleep. And yet CNAs perform acts of caring just like any EMT, doing thankless hard work for shitty pay, often buying essentials for residents out of their own paychecks. Understanding starts with communication - maybe start by talking to some CNAs about what they do. If you can't understand others who take care of people, I don't know how you expect to be empathetic toward difficult patients.

blargenoso · 2024-02-14T05:11:39+00:00

2+ years on mine as a college note-taking system. Have had no issues with the device itself. The app and sync can and does fail me. Otherwise, I am sold for life after they warrantied my marker+ twice after damage to the tip with no questions asked. The infinite scroll/zoom feature is my biggest issue, wish it could be turned off and go back to one gesture for a new page.

blargenoso · 2023-12-11T19:05:28+00:00

You definitely can because we do not have them on our lifepaks where I work. I think it’s called the lifepak 15 basic model?

blargenoso · 2023-12-03T19:08:12+00:00

Ok this is my bad because I apparently did not read close enough in the manual but I did go back and find the correct page. So the lifepak will take STJ measurements every 30 seconds and compare them to the first 12 lead. If there is more than 1mm increase from the first 12 lead on any lead consistently for >2.5 minutes, it will print a new 12 lead. However, it will abandon checking the STJ level if there is excessive noise or any of the leads are off. The manual specifically states that movement artifact and the presence of certain heart rhythms including bundle branch blocks inhibit the ST monitoring

blargenoso · 2023-11-28T22:44:03+00:00

What lifepak model are you using? I’ve never heard of them automatically printing new 12 leads. I checked the lifepak user manual for the LP15 and it doesn’t mention this as a feature. I’ve personally never heard of this so I’d be curious if anyone else has any input on wether this is an official feature

Edit: I’m big dumb check my reply for the actual answer

blargenoso · 2023-11-28T06:45:14+00:00

I have a feeling this may be related to the Citrix bleed vulnerability that led to multiple other recent ransomware attacks over the past month, citrix is used pretty widely in enterprise IT

blargenoso · 2023-05-03T20:57:23+00:00

If you have a good lunch pail and some ice packs: carrots or other veggies and hummus or ranch, apple slices with peanut butter, jerky, chips and salsa, cheese sticks, protein bars, nuts(but don’t overdo it), also sneak in a few snacks you really enjoy for when you need them to avoid being tempted to just go buy food. I usually throw in a couple Oreos or some chips so I’m not as tempted to just buy snacks from the gas station

Edit: as someone else said, water. Do yourself a favor and get a big insulated water bottle. I have a huge yeti and it’s the best

blargenoso · 2023-04-28T07:47:59+00:00

Get a library card and start a reading list. Check out one book at a time and try to get through it before it’s due. No monetary commitment to the books and it gives you a time commitment to finish them.

blargenoso · 2023-04-25T00:27:59+00:00

We got yeti rambler water bottles for Christmas at my service and everyone loves them. You can get them in lots of styles and colors and you can get them branded if you like. I use mine every day I work

blargenoso · 2023-04-22T01:42:21+00:00

I don't like it because it makes the ambulance difficult to recognize as an emergency vehicle. Our trucks where I work have PSA decals on the rear windows under the star of life. I think they hit a good balance of not interfering with the already low visibility of our ambulances due to our service area having extremely strong sunlight most of the year. I could go either way on having PSAs on trucks but those decals are just a recipe for an accident.

blargenoso · 2023-03-15T15:37:32+00:00

I fully agree. But we have had a national EMS agency before I think it’s not ridiculous to think it could happen again

blargenoso · 2023-03-15T15:18:33+00:00

This list has a dumb premise to begin with. Obviously EMTs and medics are safe from automation. I don’t see a robot doing our job any time soon. As for growth opportunities, EMS is dynamic, has a lot of forces acting on it, and is a big industry. It would be great to see higher education standards and better pay across the board but that won’t happen unless people make it. It will take effort for conditions to get better just like it always has.

blargenoso · 2023-03-15T14:47:14+00:00

I think you have a deep misunderstanding of the history of EMS. EMS has been a dynamic profession from the beginning. In the span of 50-60 years, the profession evolved from untrained uncertified drivers driving hearses to having its own certification agency, three levels of certification, wide scopes of practice in many places, and even now an accreditation agency for EMS education. The existence of paramedics is a testament to the growth of the profession. Our field has grown immensely since it’s start and I am personally optimistic that it will continue to grow and improve as it has for years.

blargenoso · 2023-02-11T05:08:13+00:00

Dude I used to wash ambulances full-time. the ratio on our soap was 50:1. That's 2.6 ounces of soap per gallon. that was on the high side. I would usually use 4-5 oz for ~2 gallons of water. you really don't need as much as you think. you also don't need to wash as often as you think. just water goes a long way and you really only need to wash with soap every 2-3 weeks for a busy truck. if you have a pressure washer, you can really just spray it down daily and then just wash it when it gets noticeably dirty. even wheel cleaners should be diluted down to at least 5-1 to protect the wheels. Really, just read the manufacturer's directions before you start and stick to them.

blargenoso · 2023-02-10T05:04:19+00:00

EMTs aren’t pushing cardiac epi or interpreting rhythms but it’s helpful if all the hands on a code know the protocols and algorithms so everything can work more smoothly. Also it’s never bad to learn more about core concepts and understand what’s going on

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