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Absolutely report that. That stuff drives me nuts. I really don't have a problem with really religious people, however they need to keep their beliefs off the ambulance and out of my face. I had a partner once who would do the same thing and try and talk about the bible all shift, it made me...

Here are the Denver-metro protocols: http://web.me.com/dmemsmd/DMEMSMD/Welcome.html These protocols are often modified by each EMS agency based on their medical director's preference. Most agencies post their protocols online so you could try searching the particular department's website to...

Depends on your local system. If your hospitals are anything like the ones around here prehospital lines are considered "dirty" and pulled within 24 hours (often it's pulled if the pt is admitted). So if you start a line on a pt that you won't use, technically you have done your patient a...

Shouldn't you find the best place for skiing and then start asking for Paramedic programs in that area? If your priority is skiing then you won't find a lot of (good) programs that will allow you to make that a priority. Paramedic school is typically a full time commitment.

Let's be realistic here, AFD isn't going to intubate anyone either, they are quite happy cramming King tubes in people and calling it good. And if by "use your skills" you mean an occasional IV and 12-lead, then yes, you will get to use those occasionally.

It's not a bad place to work... If you are moving here to be a fire medic, Rural/Metro isn't a bad place to sit and wait for a job to open. The supervisors treat you okay, people are generally friendly (it takes them a few weeks to warm up to new people), and their equipment is probably the...

Differential diagnosis is just one of those things that comes with more knowledge and experience. Going over differentials with other providers (Doctors, other Medics, Basics etc.) will help you see other's thought processes. Here is the way I look at it in my head: Pt is c/o chest pain. So...

I would add Airlife Denver to the aeromedical side, they were named 2010 AAMS flight program of the year. I would also add Denver Health Paramedic Division, they are often involved in clinical trials of new prehospital treatments. They are currently doing a trial for Droperidol, and have...

Yeah, that sounds like a bad idea to me. I would second the NPA and BVM, I usually don't worry too much about the airway unless the seizure has been going on for a while and I have tried everything to stop it. That's when it's time to check a sugar, put in a line, and hall balls to the hospital.

We have very clear protocols that say we can leave drunk people with a sober adult if they are "just drunk", lovingly called the "just drunk protocol". I think any urban EMS agency should adopt similar protocols. In my opinion, if they are AAOx4 and are able to understand the risks and...

I should have added the qualifier of appropriate prenatal care. In this day and age there shouldn't be any mysteries crawling out of women's vaginas. Docs can usually identify at-risk deliveries and give appropriate preparation, but any kid that has good prenatal care has a minuscule chance of...

I'm not sure why childbirth has become an emergency medical procedure. I don't think the process has changed much in 10000 years, and back then women were squirting these kids out onto the ground in mesopotamia without tools more complex than bronze cutting tools and a rudimentary system of...

I'm not sure what is to discuss here. It's well known that clotting factors don't work well in low temperatures. The correlation between hypothermia and the need for massive transfusion simply comes from trauma patients bleeding more due to their inability to clot. The better discussion is...

Good luck with that. Personally, I'm not wasting 96 minutes of my time trying to resuscitate a celery stick. Unless it's frozen, and then it's only because my medical director would be mad if I didn't try. As I side note I like the part that says: "But one of the flight nurses who had come...

Oh, me pre-loading EKG electrodes has nothing to do with the patient, it's got everything to do with my sanity ;) . 3 seconds rarely means much for the patient, but that's about the length of my attention span :P

We don't RSI where I work but I can say that I haven't seen Versed used by itself as an induction agent. What I have seen is patients get high doses (2-3 mcg/kg) of Fentanyl and high doses of Versed (0.2 mg/kg) together for sedation. Although 90% of the time I see Etomidate used. This website...

I can't count how many times I have heard this myself. "Oh he/she is a good medic." With the only reasoning to this statement is that "He/She has been doing this for 15 years." While I concede that more time doing a job generally means better mastery of the work, in medicine if you haven't...

It's totally appropriate to call out another provider, but not in front of their patient/family (unless it's a straight up 'will kill the patient' error). With something silly like oxygen it's best to wait until after the call, and in every case it's best to be as polite and un-confrontational...

I can't speak to what books are good since I didn't use any study guides for the NREMT. However I will give you this piece of testing advice that was infinitely helpful: The NREMT will give you 4 answers to choose from on most questions, 2 will be wrong 1 will be correct some of the time, 1 is...

Did no one else notice this? Or am I the only one that read this and laughed? Anyway, carry on. :)