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My company uses a proprietary epcr for our charts. As a result my narratives are pretty short and simple because everything is in a pull down menu. The Narrative portion is in the SOAP format. Best piece of advice I can give you is don't worry about grammatical structure in the form of...

I doubt its anxiety. Not everything that isn't Cardiac is Anxiety. Yes Anxiety can cause heart palpatations and tachycardia. It also causes shortness of breath and headaches. Any history of Anxiety attacks? History of Cardiac? Was she worried about something? What was she doing the last time...

Patient in severe anaphylaxsis. Got to the point where patient lost ability to make any sound. Gave an epi-pen enroute to ER, effects reversed and patient was able to breathe again. Never been so scared for a patient in my life. He went downhill much faster than I expected. After completing my...

Our medical director will hop on our ambulances from time to time. I don't think he actually does any treatment though, merely does it for observation purposes. A doctor will accompany us in our baby car when we go on baby calls. I believe doctors will also accompany us on the pediatric car as...

EMT class is a participation based class. If you can't participate you won't pass. Speaking is required of participation. Refuse to speak in class you will most likely be removed. As others have said, this profession requires communicating with people. You don't have to speak during the...

My class was 25 students. 1 dropped out, 3 failed, 18 passed the NREMT the 1st time through and 2 passed it the second time. 1 has yet to retake it.

Looks like Mycrofft beat me to it but the 'flu' is a misdiagnosed term. For starters there is no such thing as a 'stomach flu.' I find getting the flu shot, washing my hands frequently, and cleaning my ambulance properly I have not been sick ::knock on wood:: I also take a daily multi...

Agree sounds like homework. You should know this. Lung Sounds I will assess on every patient as part of my physical exam. When I check them will depend on patient condition though. Obviously a respiratory chief complaint is going to get them checked sooner than someone with a hand...

We don't make a dx. Now that I said what the legal eagles want me to say you are correct though I would lean more to a presumptive dx. Pseudoseizures have been lumped under psycogenic seizures. However the definition of Pseudo is pretend or fake. As taken from dictionary.com: pseu·do...

I transport patients all the time that in any other system would be ALS. If a 12 lead shows somewhat normal rhythm and the MD okays it they are going in my rig. In my example the patient had inverted T-waves but nothing else out of the ordinary. MD ok'd the BLS transport.

Agree. Medics routinely hand me 12 lead strips. I go out of my way to learn as much as I can. I may not be able to do it but makes me able to give a better report to the hospital as well as understand patient condition.

Psychogenic seizures are also called Pseudo Seizures which is a medical problem. Pseudo Seizures can also be called fake seizures. The underlying cause can be a myriad of reasons including diagnosed or undiagnosed mental problems. In our system we don't "diagnose". We make our best guess...

It is an official medical condition called Psuedo Seizures, often related to psychotic problems. In my report which is the SOAP format: A - Possible Psudoseizures There is your documentation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogenic_non-epileptic_seizures

I agree. However, I always do my own assessment from scratch rather than rely on Fire. There are a lot of excellent FF/EMT's out there. There are also a lot of FF's out there that want nothing to do with EMS. I just assume treat any patient received from Fire as if I am their first contact with...

His point is that Firefighters often don't do adequate evaluating patients and will often make up stuff. It doesn't happen often but I have had firefighters make up vitals instead of ever doing it. Thats not to say that every firefighter is a crappy EMT, but I rely on my own assessment, not...

I've done the second only in my case it was a Nasal Cannula and not a NRB. Fortunately the patient was DLOC and no injury suffered. Very embarrassing though and now I verbally call out O2 Clear.

Ah that makes sense. Still trying to learn my lung sounds, I've gotten pretty good but still got a lot more to learn.

Wouldn't fluid buildup be more Rales than Wheezing? I was always told that Rales is a sign of fluid in the lung

Have you ever seen Anaphylaxis in the field? Do you know the physiological process behind it? As mentioned Epinepherine is the gold standard for treatment. But hey I guess all those doctors who prescribe epi-pens to patients are wrong huh? Here is a little insight into our thought process. A...

Per Protocol Anaphalaxis is a BLS call with either ALS Eval or transport to ER for DR eval. We carry Epi Pens for a reason. Yes, I have given one. We don't have enough medics to come to every boo boo and owie. Believe it or not BLS stands for Basic Life Support, not Taxi. I can manage...