# Please stop making more medical junk!



## Veneficus (Mar 20, 2012)

So like many of my threads, this one started as a lunch-time conversation.

Strangely enough during a discussion on land navigation devices. 

Generally, if you hang around Fire/EMS/Military long enough, you will discover that the more working parts something has, the more it breaks. 

Inevitably, when it fails, it always does so at the most inopportune time, and often in a very exciting way.

I am going to pick on EMS, but they are not the only purveyors of another piece of useless junk designed to save the world, make something easy hard, or create 10 lbs of "must have" stuff to fill the 5 lb compartment with.

As a non EMS example, what is the deal with surgical scissors? A scalpel or fovie works just fine, and you don't have to be right handed to make them work. (my vengence in the form of a laryngoscope on all of you right handed :censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored:s.)

But really?

A better backboard. A better suction tip, a better ET tube...

If you can't intubate because of lack of skill, here is your new fiber optic toy. Far cheaper than training you and... That cost is more easily passed from the agency to consumer.

What about stretchers? Some of us old guys remember the old 2 man stretchers that you lifted from the sides. A back-breaker? For sure... But the thing didn't weigh that much. You could carry it through waste deep snow, upstairs, down stairs, and it would fit just about anywhere.

Now it seems the bigger and heavier you can make the stretcher the better it is.

What is wrong with the British idea of putting the stretcher lifting device on the ambulance?

From GPS to electronic PCRs. It is all just battery driven toys. One day the battery will go dead and nobody will know what to do. 

Probably right before a thread of EMS workers wanting to go help ventilate people with a BVM in a disaster zone until they can be carted off to a hospital.

Take your pick, from capnography on the nasal cannula to the latest "greatest" heart monitor. 

In the future EMS will waste money on unrequired crap, unable to figure out where all the budget money went after they purchase it, be completely useless during extended operations, and then try to get more money to standardize communications. 

Bulk purchasing, what a great idea...

In the meanwhile, try not to let your equipment get too wet and your jump bag so heavy it takes 3 men and a boy to carry.

Maybe you could even stop buying this crap and people would quit trying to make and market it.


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## bigbaldguy (Mar 20, 2012)

*Heresy* burn him!

But but but if we don't have every device known to man in the back of our semi truck sized ambulance how will we ever keep these people alive on the 6 minute transports to the hospital :unsure:


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## Bullets (Mar 20, 2012)

I must say that a better suction tip is needed. Yankauers are too small and always get clogged. 

Nothing beats a Ferno 35A

And those manual suctions are the best, more suction then any powered device


or 


HES A WITCH


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## EMTHokie (Mar 20, 2012)

Bullets. During my EMT class always thought those were too small to be effective but never knew for sure


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## bigbaldguy (Mar 20, 2012)

Quiet! There are ways of telling whether he is a witch.


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## fast65 (Mar 20, 2012)

Come on Vene, you actually expect me to use good ol' fashion skill and knowledge? ARE YOU MAD?!


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## mycrofft (Mar 20, 2012)

Preaching to the choir!






Emergency services of all sorts tend to attract young people with stuff-osis, then winnows them down to old ladies and gents who keep a small kit and can do lots with them.


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## NJN (Mar 20, 2012)

But but but, I love getting quotes for the latest doo dah that everyone wants but is too lazy to do the research. Then preparing presentations and proposals, OMG my FAVORITE THING TO DO EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also what would i do without a new whacker catalog every month? But I agree, EMS has too much useless stuff.


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## mycrofft (Mar 21, 2012)

There are better suction tips than the Yankhauer, but don't worry. If then pt has a seizure or goes into trismus, they'll convert that nice crunchable plastic tip into a nice large-bore in a second, you betcha.

We had a really elegant nice German portable battery-operated centrifugal suction unit which had half the suction of a good old fashioned DeVilbiss-one (diaphragm pump) and cost twice as much.


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## mycrofft (Mar 21, 2012)

Oh, surgical scissors? Nice when more than one set of hands is in a torso (the one time I assisted in an op the surgeon managed to slice my glove and not my finger, showoff). Plus, if you're dealing with Level 4 stuff, scalpels are nearly verboten.


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## Handsome Robb (Mar 21, 2012)

NJN said:


> Also what would i do without a new whacker catalog every month?



Don't talk about JEMS like that! :rofl:


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## DrParasite (Mar 21, 2012)

Veneficus said:


> What about stretchers? Some of us old guys remember the old 2 man stretchers that you lifted from the sides. A back-breaker? For sure... But the thing didn't weigh that much. You could carry it through waste deep snow, upstairs, down stairs, and it would fit just about anywhere.
> 
> Now it seems the bigger and heavier you can make the stretcher the better it is.


I call BS on this.  

As a young guy, I started 14 years ago, and the ambulance agency was still using 2 man stretchers.  I did the happy dance all over the station the day they junked them, and replaced them with 1 1/2 man stretchers.  They were decent if we have 4 people on an ambulance, all willing to lift and break their backs, but when we went down to 2 people on the truck, they were killers if you had patients who were 300+ lbs.


Veneficus said:


> From GPS to electronic PCRs. It is all just battery driven toys. One day the battery will go dead and nobody will know what to do. .


hopefully they checked their truck at the beginning of the shift, and made sure the truck included both the spare battery and the backup charger.

and ePCRs have made obtaining statistical data much easier to obtain.  PD has been doing it for years, and FD has been getting serious with it for the past decade or so.  Maybe EMS should get with the times?

remember, not all progress and new items are bad.

unless you are one of the dinosaurs, who believes "we didn't have this new thing 30 years ago, so we don't need it now!!!!"


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## mycrofft (Mar 23, 2012)

Sure. Whatever.
Just know how to use the tools when they're broken or their batteries are down.


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## TraprMike (Mar 31, 2012)

mycrofft said:


> Sure. Whatever.
> Just know how to use the tools when they're broken or their batteries are down.



+1 on thois. don't be gadget-bound. 

old saying, the newest guys always have the most stuff hanging on their belt/pants/neck.


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## Martyn (Apr 1, 2012)

bigbaldguy said:


> Quiet! There are ways of telling whether he is a witch.


 
Leave my people alone, they have been persecuted and burned for centuries...


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