reckless driving, turfing ALS patients to BLS, punitive ALS (putting a 16 in a drunk kid to teach him a lesson), the dip thing I mentioned and use of drugs or alcohol.
Those are some of things that are simply non-negotiable.
Amen. I know folks that no longer have jobs over punitive ALS. I can justify many things. Torture isn't one of them. (There's a parallel with backboards to be had here
).
Mine is working with other girls that can't lift. And have to call for a lift assist for a 200 pound patient.
I think it is a waste and makes me look bad. I can hold my own. Why can't they?
Amen. I'd expand this to ANY partner that can't or won't lift "their share". I hope to have a long career ahead of me, too - don't ask/demand that I kill my back because you don't want to do your job.
Yep, snitches are pretty much deal breakers... I've been known to have a heavy hand (metaphorically not literally) but I don't go running to management, crying over everything, if there is an issue, then you'll know and we'll discuss in no uncertain terms, but the only deal breaker is a snitch...
Hmm. Wouldn't go so far as to say that - but I will say that I was raised in EMS by folks that believed "what happens on the truck stays on the truck". In the way of gossip and interpersonal stuff - I try to leave it there. If you're doing things that are illegal or outside protocol - I'm NOT going to ignore it, so don't ask me to.
I know how you feel that's all my supervisor does honk the horn, get on the mic, in one case hopped out the rig while a pt was in back to had a girl who was no older the 17 a card with his number on it he's 50 years old with a 14 year old daughter and says his age range for girls is 16 and up I know it's bad and you shouldnt wish ill on someone but I can't wait for some old wrinklly sauger daddy to scoop up his daughter or he catches a case for trying to mees with little girls
Wow. It's one thing to look. It's another thing to make a comment within the vehicle. Beyond that? WAYYY out of line. Not only does that make the crew/company look bad to outside observers (likely including the young lady or young man), but it makes all of public safety look bad.
Oh, and incorrect spelling and grammar are pet peeves of mine. Just saying.
people who hear how a call went and take it upon themselves to criticize every aspect of the call and how they would done it better.
everyone who is overly opinionated on the job, its a profession that you should treat as such and not high school gossip for 12 hours.
overly religious partners - please keep it to yourself.
I like talking over calls, and sometimes I learn something from a partner's views of a call. But if you weren't there, you aren't really equipped to criticize the call.
Religion? Not sure what you're getting at. If you want to do your thing, go for it. Don't mock me for doing mine, or not doing anything. I see nothing wrong with someone sitting and reading the bible in downtime, if that's "their thing".
Maybe this is just too obvious to be mentioned, but the one thing I absolutely won't tolerate is carelessness with sharps.
I think this is much less of an issue than it was 10 or 20 years ago. Between industry-wide use of needle-safe devices, and better design of vehicles with sharps boxes in more convenient places, I see this as a non-issue. If I have to leave a sharp someplace other than my workspace or the sharps bin, I'll call it out.
I only have one "deal breaker" per se because I have only one ultimate goal: to make it home. If you cannot do that by either crashing more than once with me or nearly crashing more than once with me due lack of situational awareness/incompetence, or even encouraging unrest/violence on scene for one reason or another, then maybe we should find other partners.
All other quirks (dipping/smoking in the unit/sloppy dress/insubordinate/etc), will get on my nerves up to and including written reprimands.
I find it alarming how many folks mention safe operation of the emergency vehicle as a concern. My concern is that it sounds like we all see it, and many in the industry accept it, or at least put up with it. As someone that's had a collision in an ambulance, the consequences can be far-reaching. There's no cause to play Nascar driver behind the wheel of a 5 or 10 TON vehicle, with multiple lives onboard. As fun as it can be to run emergently - we need to recognize that outside of on-duty medical emergencies, the thing that kills most EMS providers is vehicular-related traumatic injury. Yeah, medical aviation accidents skew that statistic for us ground pounders, but we need to slow down and wear our seatbelts. And on scenes, we need to use blocking apparatus to ensure our safety, and make sure we're wearing our vests.