CelerySticks
Forum Ride Along
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Found this forum after bad experience in LA recerts got me to wondering just how bad is the state of EMS.
Now, we've all encountered some "interesting" EMT-1 and Medics out there, but recently while attending a skills recertification for LA Cty I was horrified at the ineptness of licensed medics there for recert who could not complete the mere basics of BLS.
Granted, that the place was a cattle call for skills verification but what I saw was seasoned FD, rig medic and EMT's, and hospital techs unable to properly secure a patient to a backboard, place a cervical collar, operate suction, etc. Not once did I witness anyone able to accurately describe procedures for tractin splints and the childbirth was a joke.
But each one of them was passed. Over and over I witnessed these people glaze over with a deer in the headlights expression, unable to articulate the procedure let alone actually perform the skill (compressions were... ok, but BVM looked more like miming resuscitation instead of doing it). Repeatedly, the skills officers had to hold each person's hand, leading them through it, telling them what they did wrong, signing off no the skill and telling the person to study up on it.
For my job, I usually work alone and get assigned to high risk work operations crew and go in the field with them. Though I have met some bizarre (aka better off without) treatment from other medics, I think my relative isolation has kept me blinded to just how bad the field is getting in this area.
I've met some great medics out there, but they are few and far between. This latest skills verification recert has me convinced that the recert process needs to be vamped up to weed out incompetence, or at least identify them and get them up to par.
Anyone else seeing this during Recerts?
Now, we've all encountered some "interesting" EMT-1 and Medics out there, but recently while attending a skills recertification for LA Cty I was horrified at the ineptness of licensed medics there for recert who could not complete the mere basics of BLS.
Granted, that the place was a cattle call for skills verification but what I saw was seasoned FD, rig medic and EMT's, and hospital techs unable to properly secure a patient to a backboard, place a cervical collar, operate suction, etc. Not once did I witness anyone able to accurately describe procedures for tractin splints and the childbirth was a joke.
But each one of them was passed. Over and over I witnessed these people glaze over with a deer in the headlights expression, unable to articulate the procedure let alone actually perform the skill (compressions were... ok, but BVM looked more like miming resuscitation instead of doing it). Repeatedly, the skills officers had to hold each person's hand, leading them through it, telling them what they did wrong, signing off no the skill and telling the person to study up on it.
For my job, I usually work alone and get assigned to high risk work operations crew and go in the field with them. Though I have met some bizarre (aka better off without) treatment from other medics, I think my relative isolation has kept me blinded to just how bad the field is getting in this area.
I've met some great medics out there, but they are few and far between. This latest skills verification recert has me convinced that the recert process needs to be vamped up to weed out incompetence, or at least identify them and get them up to par.
Anyone else seeing this during Recerts?
