Post your favorite piece of EMS dogma.....

[NUEMT]

What are the things still being taught/practiced today in EMS that make you cringe?

 

[akflightmedic]

BLS before ALS.

 

[NUEMT]

BLS before ALS.

Expand?

 

[akflightmedic]

Cruise the forums...many threads on it. Or i can kick the horse again. You only asked for dogma and if it made me cringe.

 

[NomadicMedic]

"We don't medicate abdominal pain" and "if you can feel a radial pulse their pressure is at least 90"

 

[DesertMedic66]

High flow oxygen never hurts

 

[TransportJockey]

Treat the patient not the monitor

 

[STXmedic]

EMS doesn't diagnose

 

[NUEMT]

EMS doesn't diagnose

good one.

 

[NUEMT]

Trauma.... 2 large bore IVs wide open...

 

[NUEMT]

Cruise the forums...many threads on it. Or i can kick the horse again. You only asked for dogma and if it made me cringe.

Kick away..Why the cringe.. yours is a bit less obvious.

 

[RocketMedic]

Abdominal pain and the golden hour.

 

[Gurby]

BLS before ALS.

Cruise the forums...many threads on it. Or i can kick the horse again. You only asked for dogma and if it made me cringe.

Seems reasonable to me that we want to do an assessment, address issues with ABC's, get vital signs, get a sense of their medical history, etc, before we start playing with our ALS toys? Of course there are exceptions to anything, and it makes me cringe any time anything is held up as sacred... But I would be interested to hear your thoughts.

 

[NUEMT]

No i totally agree.. Now I get it.. you cringe just on the idea that it is somehow necessary to say, not that it's outright wrong. Right AK? Thanks Gurby.

 

[akflightmedic]

Sorry been busy and trying to circle back to this...to explain it properly will probably take multiple posts but lets get to it!
And some of you may argue this is just semantics, however my argument is presented with the concept of a "whole approach" to the patient care model.

Once you obtain certain education, experience and/or skill sets, you are never truly just doing BLS before ALS. You aren't. It is all one total approach. I do not work down a set BLS check list first then go to ALS. And we should not educate in that fashion nor encourage treatment and most certainly not mindless mantras reinforcing this concept.

We can say there are BLS skills and their are ALS skills, however our educational model and approach with patient care should not be delineated like that. We jump all around from BLS to ALS and vice versa....but there is no massive divide and I do not think "Oh I need to do a BLS intervention now". It is medicine.

Do you realize we are the only medical "professionals" which preach this concept and reinforce it?

When I have more time to find some great articles exactly about this topic I will post them. They are many years old so it will take some google-fu.

BLS before ALS is as bad as saying Paramedics Save Lives, EMTs Save Paramedics. Just shoot me...

 

[NUEMT]

Sorry been busy and trying to circle back to this...to explain it properly will probably take multiple posts but lets get to it!
And some of you may argue this is just semantics, however my argument is presented with the concept of a "whole approach" to the patient care model.

Once you obtain certain education, experience and/or skill sets, you are never truly just doing BLS before ALS. You aren't. It is all one total approach. I do not work down a set BLS check list first then go to ALS. And we should not educate in that fashion nor encourage treatment and most certainly not mindless mantras reinforcing this concept.

We can say there are BLS skills and their are ALS skills, however our educational model and approach with patient care should not be delineated like that. We jump all around from BLS to ALS and vice versa....but there is no massive divide and I do not think "Oh I need to do a BLS intervention now". It is medicine.

Do you realize we are the only medical "professionals" which preach this concept and reinforce it?

When I have more time to find some great articles exactly about this topic I will post them. They are many years old so it will take some google-fu.

BLS before ALS is as bad as saying Paramedics Save Lives, EMTs Save Paramedics. Just shoot me...

Excellent explanation. Thanks for playing along. Great point about the total approach. The relatively "cookbook" style of medical education that occurs in EMS is a huge downfall to the profession. It turns out that patients don't present in a nice neat incremental fashion.

 

[Flying]

Can't remember who the president is after your fall? You get a board and collar!

 

[TransportJockey]

Actually, board used at all other than a moving tool

 

[NUEMT]

Actually, board used at all other than a moving tool

Slowly people are coming around. What about PASG's? Is anyone still using other than pelvic binder or something?

 

[TransportJockey]

No one around here or in NM carries them at all really