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Yes, compared to a new paramedic, a new RN is more dangerous on the unit. The entire paramedic program is geared toward prehospital. Adding a 3 or 6-credit prehospital course to the RN program is not going to prepare the RN for prehospital. Orienting a new paramedic to prehospital operations is...

If you read my initial response a few pages back, I'm on board with that same opinion. Handing EMS over to nursing is too cost-prohibitive and too dangerous (in regards to putting new RN's on the bus, as was suggested by the OP). On top of that, you're putting all the current EMT's and...

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there ARE prehospital nurses that do ride the bus. Some states have specific prehospital certification for RN's. I believe you're referring to the Johnson & Johnson nursing recruitment commercial. It's not a slam against EMS. It's just showing nurses working in...

That much is understood. I'm sorry if I was unclear in my wording, but what I said was that I skimmed through a couple of regional protocols (not one uniform "state" protocol) and could not find anything related to hanging blood or K+.

Fair enough. When I think of EMS, I usually don't even think of flight services, because they're a completely different animal. ;)

So, you don't have EMS protocols in Texas? I wonder what that nice list of protocols I linked to was for, then. Weird. Transporting a patient from one facility to another with blood already hanging is one thing. Hanging the blood yourself is another. It's the same in Tennessee. The patient can...

If a hospital were to set things up that way, I'd agree with that. But how many hospitals take on that level of perceived liability? (key word: perceived) Typical ED setup is for the medic to work as a tech while the RN supervises patient care. Tennessee EMS regs even specifically notate that...

Just looking at your location, did you do this in Saudi Arabia or in TX? We're talking US EMS here. I just skimmed through a couple of regional TX EMS protocol lists here and was not able to find anything mentioning administration of potassium or blood.

Not sure where this is headed. I will never make the statement that RN > Medic. Ever. I addressed the statement that RN's cannot do any more than a medic in regards to the H&T's of ACLS (see above).

It's not on the truck because... *drumroll*... it's not within scope of practice. Don't pull the "nurses just wait around for doctors to give them orders" nonsense. ER and ICU nurses have standing orders that allow them to operate without MD handholding. Medics do not practice medicine...

Well, you take the portion of money that Fire is getting for their bloated call volume and dump it into DoH-run EMS, and I think you have your money right there. But that's not going to happen as long as the IAFF is around, as others have pointed out. ;)

Really? Just off the top of my head... ever set up a KCl drip as a medic? Ever hung blood products as a medic?

On another note, if I were able to make one suggestion that would be a huge improvement for EMS, it would be to disassociate EMS with Fire. EMS has always been and will always be nothing more than a way to increase call numbers for the FD to get more money to buy more shiny red engines. If the...

I know I'm late coming into this, but I thought I'd throw in my two cents. LPN since 2006, EMT-IV since 2008, and new RN as of this year, so my opinion may not carry as much weight as the more experienced folks. In the matter of taking new RN's and putting them on the bus, I'd have to say...

You're absolutely right. There will never be enough time or equipment available in the field to make the kinds of differential diagnoses that you need to make to start writing prescriptions on the street. The best that you'll be able to do is write a broad spectrum antibiotic for the sniffles...

I'm not sure what a "standard nurse" is, but I don't think that you'll find ER or ICU nurses waiting around for "a doc there to tell them what they can and can not do". Additionally, as a medic, the doctor has already told the medic what he can and cannot do. It's called protocol. ICU and ER...

All good points. It drives me crazy when medics talk about how they should be primary care providers, able to write scripts, etc. I'm sorry, but two years of paramedicine education does not cut it for being able to write prescriptions for antibiotics like they're candy. If we could expand the...

Guess what? The behavior and thought process you're describing goes both ways. Some nurses hate medics, some medics hate nurses. This will never change until both sides are exposed more to each others' profession. One thing that was off-putting in your post was the statement, "especially an...

I only made that statement because of the silly "only people complaining are the ones who haven't worked in vans" statement.

Then you can add me as your second :P. I've spent more than my fair share of time in a type II, and it sucks immensely. Maybe the people who AREN'T complaining about vans have never worked in a box unit. The space is cramped as hell. You have almost no room to move around. Accessing equipment...