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You can't look at it like "will I make back enough for this to be work it." It's more like "would doing wilderness medicine for a week be enough fun that I'd pay a weeks pay for it." Also check with your company/FD. A lot of places have an education fund where you can get a few dollars a year...

Some of them, like SOLO, had a wilderness upgrade from EMT to WEMT. prob more fun than doing WFR because they can assume you know most of the physiology and you aren't repeating stuff.

I don't really like the "it doesn't matter if we miss the airway because they are dead" argument. My issue is that if you esophageally intubate and you get ROSC, those pulses aren't going to last very long. Most EMTs don't have the sort of tools that medics carry to confirm tube placement like...

I think it goes back to protocols. If your protocols say "transport post arrest to the closest hospital," you should call medical control and ask to bypass. If they say yes you are home free. If that patient is still in arrest you should go to the closest hospital. Mainly because if you...

For new york state protocols I found this: Obviously, significant indirect (off-line) medical control has been assumed in the development of these protocols. It was also assumed that appropriate local direct (on-line) medical control at both the basic life support (BLS) and advanced life...

We used to do that, though it wasn't in the protocol. Espically since our meds didn't have to be "drawn up." When the medic wanted epi it was just a matter of opening the box and screwing the two pieces together.

You can never go wrong with calling medical control. "Hi, I have this 90 year old patient who fell 2 days ago, her lower back hurts but she is refusing backboarding which my protocols are directing me to do. I am requesting permission to transport the patient without backboarding her, she has...

It's nice if you are running an EMT/medic truck. So if there is a fracture the EMT can start the line while the medic is pulling up pain meds. Or on a cardiac arrest the EMT can do the line and put the patient on the monitor while the medic intubates and pulls up ACLS drugs. Or on an MI the...

I hear what you are saying, the mechanism makes sense. But still pretty rare in most places in the county. I see you are from WA, you have a lot of patients who have been skiing "sierra cement?" I have a suspicion that spring/ glacier skiing in some places like washington produces much more of...

I was ski patrol for 9 years, all the spiral fractures I saw on skiers were of the tibia. The only femur fractures I've seen on skiers were from hitting something like a tree. Not saying it's not possible, but especially with modern bindings its very rare to have spiral fractures in general...

You do need to keep an eye out, there are places that will hire you to work as an EMT, doesn't mean they know anything about medical direction or what the state requires. My college used to hire us to work at rugby games, eventually we figured out we needed a medical director and had to be...

By this argument anyone who doesn't get ALS interventions on scene probably can be taken to the hospital by BLS. The vast majority of ALS calls don't get actual ALS treatment (ie meds or fluids or intubation), but as a system we say "patient's with x complaint are still ALS even if all we do is...

Not sure if I agree with this. Half of the point of ALS if for those patients who don't need an immediate ALS intervention, but have a decent probability of needing an intervention enroute to the hospital. I'd say patients with chest pain generally should be transported by ALS, even with a...

Just to be clear on this, even if you say "I'm not trained to do this," that doesn't allow you to do things that you aren't trained in. So if an MD tells an EMT "stick in this chest tube," you aren't absolved of responsibility for violating the standard of care as an EMT and you could lose your...

Sure I agree with the above posters, but in truth I'm not sure it really matters. The truth is if this MD is on the scene of the emergency with you and they are helping them, I don't think you'd get in anymore trouble than if the MD was directing bystanders to help them hold pressure on bleeding...

These studies are talking about all long bone fractures, ie humerus, tibia etc. Not just femur. So it isn't really looking at what the question is, which is if traction on femur fractures reduces mortality.

The con is that you waste time with no compressions being given while the machine "thinks." I'm pretty sure I can recognize vtach faster than an AED prompts to shock. I can't see any pros unless you don't know how to use the LP12 or can't read a shockable rhythm.

How did he swallow that thing?

I'd say most of the improper collars are if anything turning the patients head. I don't think they are putting a lot of force on the clavicle.

Find me a case report of a c-collar causing a broken clavicle to lacerate the subclavian. Otherwise I'm not worrying about it. Also a properly applied c-collar is putting pressure on the chin, sternum, occiput and back around C7. Shouldn't be a whole lot of pressure on the clavicle, especially...