My new ambulance partners don’t really take me seriously the first time they witness me do this. They don’t really think I’m sincere, I guess. Neither do the new people who I stop in the hallway and thank, and I mean sincerely thank, for doing their part to save the lives of my patients and […]

Your patient, a 54 year-old Female, looks at you with a subtle yet perceptible look of panic in her eyes and winces slightly with every breath. You arrived with your Engine company a few minutes ago and are riding the EMT spot today. The Medic unit is inbound, but is coming from across town and […]

It’s interesting how personal experiences and professional biases can affect a clinician’s personal style of providing patient care. I’d wager that it happens to us all in some subtle and some not-so-subtle ways. One of the things I’ve noticed about my own style of personal practice is that I’m very sensitive to screening for and […]

Buried down deep in the 450 or some odd blog posts I have on this site, you’ll find a few that cover how to write an EMS narrative report. It’s a skill that each and every EMT and Paramedic has to practice and perfect over the course of their careers lest they find themselves without […]

Want to remember a quick and easy trick for remembering the Glasgow Coma Scale? My Extra Value Meal costs $4.56 – Eyes: 1-4 – Verbal 1-5 – Motor 1-6 You can always remember the top numbers of the scale by using this mnemonic, whether or not you actually remember the details of the numbers in […]

Ambulance 34, Ambulance 34. 452 Smithfield Street for the 34 year old male with chest pain and difficulty breathing. Delta-Level response. Medic 72 will be your backup. Time out 14:35 Ambulance 34, a BLS level ambulance responds from their designated system-status management post to the residential neighborhood where the call came from. Upon their arrival […]

Push Hard. Push Fast. Don’t Stop. By now, every single healthcare person out there should know that in order to improve a victim of cardiac arrest’s chances of meaningful survival, chest compressions are where it’s at. Blood needs to keep circulating in order to keep a person’s heart and brain alive and functioning. High quality […]

It’s a little known fact that I can speak a little Spanish. I’m not very good at it, and I have a lot of trouble conjugating verbs into the past and future tenses, but I can carry on a fairly relevant conversation with most Spanish speaking individuals when the need arises. It always throws people […]

Is Occam using a razor to shave Zebras while Hickam dictates? I’m no good at titles. Anywho, here’s a case about a patient that may be more than he seems

  04/01/2013 – Peoria, Illinois Calling it “A save right in the nick of time” Paramedic Jules Slatterly thanked chronic system abuser Wade Fugman for waking her up at 03:37am last Thursday. Paramedic Slatterly explains “We had been running pretty hard all day on our 24-hour shift, with around 11 calls between noon and 1am. […]