Thursday, February 25, 2010
education oppotunity
This week i am attending the ESCAPe conference in Pipestem, WV. It involves taking several short EMS related classes during the day and socializing in the evenings, and so far I'm having a blast. I've taken some good classes so far and some good ones to come I hope. I've been running into old friends and making new ones. God I miss WV!! Today I took 4 classes: therapuetic electrocution, a new look on pacing (and was warned that the ACLS police may arrest us if we try what we learned), a refresher on diabetic patients, a refresher on spinal motion restriction, and an indepth look at pediatric fevers. Classes run 9-5, socializing starts around 7 or 8....hotel is 20 min from conference center and it's been snowing all day....there is a winter weather watch in effect til Sunday and they are calling for up to 24 inches of snow....ugh!!! I REALLY hate snow....
Monday, February 22, 2010
personal rant...
I have been living with my roommate who is also my best friend for about 7 months now. I had always heard that living with your best friend never works out, and while I had tried living with friends beofre and never lasted an extended period of time, this time felt different. I guess the "honeymoon period" is coming to a quick close. In the last month I have noticed that either 1) she is doing more things that annoy me than beofre or 2) Im finally noticing things that she does that annoy the piss out of me.
The biggest beef I have lately is that I have begun to notice just how self absorbed she can be. While if I needed money, a ride, a fresh uniform at work, or dinner brought to me she would do it, but when it comes to other things that are not so materialistic she thinks only of herself. And when I point out to her the effects of her action or decisions had on me or anyone else I get one of 2 responses: 1) "I didnt think about that" or 2):well, theres nothing I can do about it now, Im sorry" or something along those lines.
The latest decisions affect not only me but a few other people. While I tend to hang with an older crowd I am used to having male and female friends who are married, and with that comes an almost special set of rules, especially when it comes to married male friends. I have learned the hard way that some men will be dogs, married or not and you can get yourself into a sticky situation very quickly without even knowing it until you are waist high in it. She recently has become close to a paticular married guy friend. This paticular guy is a newly wed, married a mere 6 months. His wife is also a friend of mine, and she has had her share of bad relationships and now is self-conscious about her significant other. My roommate has been doing a lot of texting and talking to this guy, enough that his wife has noticed the amount and has become concerned. She mentioned her concern to husband and when did not get a satisfactory response she expressed her concern to me in hopes that I would mention it to my friend and things could get fixed then, with no hurt feelings or awkward experiences.
Well, it didnt work. My RM decided to not listen to anything I had to say. After several conversations being the go between I decided to remove myself from the situation and told all parties involved I wished to be nuetral, and not part of any future parts. This has not worked either. Just tonight I received a msg from the wife about finding her husband at our house sitting on our couch in a pair of pants and no shirt, his shirt and shoes were in her bedroom....I am just at my wits end....this is only part of a complicated week. There are quite a few things that go into play here, but Im too exhausted just thinking about it. I blame myself for part of it. I just want to rewind about 2 weeks and start over from there and maybe things would be different if I had made a different decision. If I had paid more attention to a few details. While I am not perfect and don't claim to be, for I have definitly made enough bad decisions of my own in the past and sure to make more in the future, I dont want my best friend to make any decisions that she will regret later, but I can only do so much......
The biggest beef I have lately is that I have begun to notice just how self absorbed she can be. While if I needed money, a ride, a fresh uniform at work, or dinner brought to me she would do it, but when it comes to other things that are not so materialistic she thinks only of herself. And when I point out to her the effects of her action or decisions had on me or anyone else I get one of 2 responses: 1) "I didnt think about that" or 2):well, theres nothing I can do about it now, Im sorry" or something along those lines.
The latest decisions affect not only me but a few other people. While I tend to hang with an older crowd I am used to having male and female friends who are married, and with that comes an almost special set of rules, especially when it comes to married male friends. I have learned the hard way that some men will be dogs, married or not and you can get yourself into a sticky situation very quickly without even knowing it until you are waist high in it. She recently has become close to a paticular married guy friend. This paticular guy is a newly wed, married a mere 6 months. His wife is also a friend of mine, and she has had her share of bad relationships and now is self-conscious about her significant other. My roommate has been doing a lot of texting and talking to this guy, enough that his wife has noticed the amount and has become concerned. She mentioned her concern to husband and when did not get a satisfactory response she expressed her concern to me in hopes that I would mention it to my friend and things could get fixed then, with no hurt feelings or awkward experiences.
Well, it didnt work. My RM decided to not listen to anything I had to say. After several conversations being the go between I decided to remove myself from the situation and told all parties involved I wished to be nuetral, and not part of any future parts. This has not worked either. Just tonight I received a msg from the wife about finding her husband at our house sitting on our couch in a pair of pants and no shirt, his shirt and shoes were in her bedroom....I am just at my wits end....this is only part of a complicated week. There are quite a few things that go into play here, but Im too exhausted just thinking about it. I blame myself for part of it. I just want to rewind about 2 weeks and start over from there and maybe things would be different if I had made a different decision. If I had paid more attention to a few details. While I am not perfect and don't claim to be, for I have definitly made enough bad decisions of my own in the past and sure to make more in the future, I dont want my best friend to make any decisions that she will regret later, but I can only do so much......
my worst EMS nightmare
I mentioned a few posts back that my worst EMS nightmare to date had happened, but at the time I was unable to talk about it. At this point everyone in the local EMS community knows about it, so I suppose it's ok now.
I often do ALS tranports out of the emergency room that I work in. We typically either call one of our own medics in or one of the 3 of us on shift will go, but only for the ALS transports out of our own ER. This was the case the night of "the incident". I took a very stable trauma pt with a head bleed to a trauma center about an hour away. The local BLS transport company sent 2 people on their ambulance. They and I loaded my gear on their truck and we got the patient situated and off we went. The call went without any complications. Upon leaving the trauma center, one of BLS employees offered me to ride shotgun, and I happily accepted. We had an uneventful trip back, put my gear back and finished the rest of my shift, no problems yet again. I got home the next morning and got ready for bed. I had no sooner got situated in my PJs in my comfy bed when my cell rings and I looked at caller ID to see the bossman calling me (this is a rarity, especially using his own phone). He began questioning me about the transport I took, which gear set I used and any procedures or tratments I may have performed during said transport. I explained I only monitored the pt on the cardiac monitor and vital signs, no other treatment or procedures were needed. I was then advised that there were narcotics missing from the gear I had used, and thatthey had been accounted for at the begining of my shift but when day shift was doing their rig check it was discovered that 3 vials of narcs were missing. I immediately got out of bed, got dressed and headed back into work. I eded up spending about 4 hours with my boss, police and simply just waiting. I gave a written statement to my boss, one to police and was interviewed by local police, video tapes were reviewed of both facilities to ensure the theft didnt happen while the ambulance was unattended.
The end line of the story is that while suspicion was high, it couldnt be proven. I was never considered the culprit, and my boss had my back 100%.
Since then the way we store, count, and track our narcs has changed and I have become even more anal retentive about my narcotics.
I often do ALS tranports out of the emergency room that I work in. We typically either call one of our own medics in or one of the 3 of us on shift will go, but only for the ALS transports out of our own ER. This was the case the night of "the incident". I took a very stable trauma pt with a head bleed to a trauma center about an hour away. The local BLS transport company sent 2 people on their ambulance. They and I loaded my gear on their truck and we got the patient situated and off we went. The call went without any complications. Upon leaving the trauma center, one of BLS employees offered me to ride shotgun, and I happily accepted. We had an uneventful trip back, put my gear back and finished the rest of my shift, no problems yet again. I got home the next morning and got ready for bed. I had no sooner got situated in my PJs in my comfy bed when my cell rings and I looked at caller ID to see the bossman calling me (this is a rarity, especially using his own phone). He began questioning me about the transport I took, which gear set I used and any procedures or tratments I may have performed during said transport. I explained I only monitored the pt on the cardiac monitor and vital signs, no other treatment or procedures were needed. I was then advised that there were narcotics missing from the gear I had used, and thatthey had been accounted for at the begining of my shift but when day shift was doing their rig check it was discovered that 3 vials of narcs were missing. I immediately got out of bed, got dressed and headed back into work. I eded up spending about 4 hours with my boss, police and simply just waiting. I gave a written statement to my boss, one to police and was interviewed by local police, video tapes were reviewed of both facilities to ensure the theft didnt happen while the ambulance was unattended.
The end line of the story is that while suspicion was high, it couldnt be proven. I was never considered the culprit, and my boss had my back 100%.
Since then the way we store, count, and track our narcs has changed and I have become even more anal retentive about my narcotics.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
I'll admit it, I'm a cardiac chicken...
McDreamy Partner goes out for a chest pain in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a blizzard, you guessed it, guy was having an inferior MI. McDP brings pt to the local hospital due to road conditions, we can at least stabalize and get thrombolytics on board, pt found to be having an inferior as well as a RVI...the docs originally decide to admit to CCU here until they can get him transferred to Big City Hospital for a cath. Third Partner says he has connections and can arrange for state DOT plow trucks to lead the way all the way to Big City for the ambulance, so everything gets arranged and the question is asked, which of us wants to go with the local FD ambulance with this guy. There are 3 of us, we all have the same education, 2 of us with less experience, I admit, I was chicken, I didnt want to take this unstable pt in a major snowstorm, partner 2 says the last AMI he had in the last snow storm coded on him in the town square and he is still shell shocked (I DID transport that one in the midst of the last snowstorm) and so we talked partner 3 into going, after all, he has more experience....
I would have taken it if no other choice....but I guess my thought was it was in the patient's best interest for the most experienced medic to go, right??
I still tend to get a little gun shy with cardiac patients, even after 2 1/2 years of being a paramedic.....it doesn't seem to matter how many ACLS or 12-lead classes I sit through....Any helpful advice is welcome.....
I would have taken it if no other choice....but I guess my thought was it was in the patient's best interest for the most experienced medic to go, right??
I still tend to get a little gun shy with cardiac patients, even after 2 1/2 years of being a paramedic.....it doesn't seem to matter how many ACLS or 12-lead classes I sit through....Any helpful advice is welcome.....
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