Recent content by berkeman

One reason is that the condition may be transitory, and may not present to the docs and nurses in the ED. For example, stress can be one contributor to PVCs in the heart rhythm (which you can detect with a pulse check or a simple EKG), but may resolve by the time you get to the ED.

Do you have a uniform store anywhere nearby? They usually have a good assortment of patches, and can sew them on for you as well.

Memorization is something you can work on and get better at if you are motivated to do it. Write things down a lot while you are memorizing them, and keep writing them down over and over until you can do it easily from memory (not needing to refer to your notes or the textbook). When you learn...

For either of those courses, are you able to buy the textbook a month or two in advance and go through it on your own before classes start? That helped me a lot -- I had read worked through the whole textbook before the first day of class, so that helped to make it a lot easier to absorb the...

Fixed it for you. Amazon gives a written exam for employment, so it's best if you take care in your grammar. 😉

Noise cancellation would be good. I often am in pretty noisy environments when taking initial vitals. I looked at their website, but didn't see quickly what batteries it takes and how long they last. I'm guessing that it has a mechanical on-off switch?

Did your training involve any realistic Pts with moulage? The more of that type of training you can do, the more comfortable you get with dealing with the real thing. You might look into your local groups like Disaster Healthcare Volunteers to see if you might be interested in joining a group...

TBH, in addition to the medical resources and study books, I've found a couple other popular books by experienced Medics to be very helpful. In my 15 years of working part-time shifts (some crazy intense, some boring), it has been helpful to read these small paperbacks written by medics on the...

My Mentor (a paramedic) gave me his copy of that book when I first got my EMT license (15 years ago). It's got nice concise summaries and lots of useful tips for working on Pts. It also has ALS assessment and Tx information, but it all fits together pretty well, even at the EMT level. Some of...

This is the primary thing to focus on, IMO. The secondary things are 12s vs. 24s and the sleep aspect. Are you currently on your meds and back in counselling? If not, there is not much we can help with, IMO. If you are back on your meds and back in couselling, maybe you can find some support...

Very sorry for the sudden loss of your spouse. That must be a very difficult thing to deal with. Please take time to grieve, and also to take care of yourself. It's good that you want to get back to EMS. Remember that working as an EMT won't pay that bills at your place in life now...

I worked a 2-day USATF track meet in NorCal this last weekend, and I had a moderate asthma Pt in the grandstands that had her own inhaler and the situation worked out fine. But as usual afterwards I started running alternate scenarios, and for the first time I thought about how to handle a...

Agreed, it doesn't seem like the Hx of TIAs would contraindicate ASA. The hypertension and diabetes might, but not the TIAs.

Yeah, if you can safely drive yourself to Urgent Care, that's probably the best option.

How did you keep your license valid without taking a refresher class and passing the skills test every two years? Here in Cali you have to at least do that to stay licensed. And I thought you had to be actively working as an EMT in order to renew your NREMT every two years. I only kept it up...