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1. You can never be 100% sure of anything. Even with imaging studies, small fractures can be missed. That being said, your physical assessment, if performed correctly and thoroughly, should help rule out spinal injury rather well. 2. This is exactly the point. Backboards don't actually prevent...

This. Even though that isn't my protocol, is still do similar things. To me, protocols are guidelines, and not hard and fast rules to live by. If I can explain myself and provide evidence as to why I did something, my medical director has no issue with it. As he shouldn't. Protocols are in place...

Wow, that sounds harsh. I've seen processes like this in the local 911 agencies, but never in IFT. As a matter of fact, the only training you really do for one of our local IFTs is a stretcher demonstration, where you take the power stretcher out of the truck and put it back in. After that...

I must respectfully disagree with this... While EMS is part of the emergency response system, we are different from firefighters and police officers. Unless you wish to revert to the days of throwing someone in the back and praying they make it while you hastily make your way to the hospital...

I'm reading an awful lot of posts that are saying to collar and board this patient. My question is why? What exactly are you hoping to achieve? What do you think the collar and board are going to do? If this patient just happened to be the literal one in a million that has spinal trauma from a...

Ha I can... Try the nurses... Although our issues are largely self-inflicted. Seriously, the barrier to entry for this profession is ridiculously low.

Ha those are some good questions... I studied basic science (BS - Biology/Chemistry; MS - Physiology; PharmD/PhD candidate - Pharmacotherapy), all of which required research at my institution since I had to write theses in order to graduate. I will always find time to work as a field provider...

I'm currently working on several grants, both bench science and clinical/field studies. Two of them are cooperative efforts between EMS agencies and my academic health system. I've currently got two first author manuscripts in review, and I'm diligently working on my third. My bench work is also...

Oh I love this thread, already... If I cook the night before, I try to do a pasta dish or maybe a chili (chicken corn chili has been my recent addiction) of some sort. They're filling, and you can make a lot at a time. I also frequently prepare salads the night before and mix them up when it's...

Coming from someone who has been there and done that, you're correct. The graduate degrees will get you nowhere in EMS. Though a graduate degree will allow you to run EMS educational programs, whereas an AAS or BS/BA will not, at least where I live. I've spent my career trying to combine my two...

I definitely needed this news story... I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. On a serious note, though, why do people with little to no knowledge of the system feel the need to comment on it or tell us how to do our jobs? I just thought it was hilarious that this gentleman thought they...

Hopefully all of them... I'm fighting an uphill battle trying to get my providers to stop using them because "that's the way it's always been done". That is the worst reason in the world to do something, but it appears that EBM doesn't mean anything to the majority because they cling to what...

This. Higher education was not designed to prepare people for jobs, with the exception of specific professional degrees. It isn't the actual material that matters, though a solid background in the hard sciences would definitely help one in the field... Graduating from a brick-and-mortar...