Recent content by FiremanMike

FWIW my usage of "signing off" had less to do with the physical act of getting a signature and more the act of giving report and turning the patient over. As long as I can tell a nurse/doc at the hospital "hey I brought you this patient complaining of this and my assessment showed that" and...

I don't pretend to be a lawyer, but it's always been my understanding that dropping a patient without a signoff would be considered abandonment..

I had a buddy that worked for Memphis Fire about 10 years ago (subsequently left the FD altogether). He said they'd have 1+ hour waits in the ER to drop their patient, then have runs holding when they cleared..

The best is when people call 911 from triage for transport to a different hospital because the wait is too long…

Is it really that uncommon? We’ve been doing it here longer than I’ve been on the job (22 years)..

If you're interested in HEMS, STAT MedEvac is on the west side of the state and they are pretty highly regarded..

I don't begrudge anyone who does, but for me it was an important mental separation to no longer consider myself a firefighter.. Just a dude who works at a fire department.. It came to a head for me a few years ago when I secured a pretty lucrative educational position outside of the FD, a...

I long ago stopped saying I was a firefighter/medic, now if people ask me what I do, I tell them I work for a fire department and leave it at that..

The skill itself is easy, it's everything that goes into intubating that makes it hard. But we (accreditation boards, teachers, managers) focus on "you must have XX number of intubations to be competent. I'd argue you must have XX exposure to stress management and critical thinking to be...

Opinion - the psychomotor skill of intubation is nowhere near as difficult as we make it out to be.

Medics CAN be as smart as nurses, at least as it pertains to emergency care, but it takes dedication to the craft and a lot of hard work and self study. The medics who do that recognize the volume of work and aren’t generally the ones pounding their chests saying they’re as smart as nurses...

The breadth of curriculum of paramedic school isn’t even in the same ballpark as RN school. Passing RN school requires an exponentially deeper knowledge of physiology, pathophysiology, and pharmacology compared to passing paramedic school. A new grad RN has significantly more medical knowledge...

I don’t think any of us need ballistic vests at all..

100% agree.

Just so I'm not a completely argumentative *** - my wife is a nurse too, and has told me countless stories of absolute ***-hattery from some of her coworkers..