There are many sounds I hate. I now have a new one.
The sound of a mother crying over her 18 year old child's body.
She was the one who found him unconscious, not breathing, with no pulse.
Pierced me to the heart, it did.
No parent should have to bury their child.
It really sucks when you walk into drill night and the person charge says "Hey, remember those ideas for drill we were tossing around the other day? Why don't we do one of those!"
This is especially hard when you were talking about scenario-based drills and you haven't had the chance to come up with any scenarios. Not to mention that aside from you and the person in charge of drill there are only 2 other EMT's and everyone else isn't in class yet.
Still, I don't think I did too bad. I threw together an MCI drill, giving people slips of paper with various injuries on them, and told the EMT that they were first on scene and only had 2 more units coming immediately available, and to triage the patients. They then had to defend their decision. It made a lot of people stop and think about what triaging is supposed to do. I think I need to come up with a set of cards with various injuries on them so we can do this again.
Also, I suspect that I will be called into action again to help with drills, so if anyone had any ideas for good, relatively short drills, mainly for brandy-new EMT-B's and those that are basically first-aiders, please share. Also, any good calls that you could share (without violating HIPAA of course) would be helpful in making scenarios to help train the new kids.
It really sucks when you walk into drill night and the person charge says "Hey, remember those ideas for drill we were tossing around the other day? Why don't we do one of those!"
This is especially hard when you were talking about scenario-based drills and you haven't had the chance to come up with any scenarios. Not to mention that aside from you and the person in charge of drill there are only 2 other EMT's and everyone else isn't in class yet.
Still, I don't think I did too bad. I threw together an MCI drill, giving people slips of paper with various injuries on them, and told the EMT that they were first on scene and only had 2 more units coming immediately available, and to triage the patients. They then had to defend their decision. It made a lot of people stop and think about what triaging is supposed to do. I think I need to come up with a set of cards with various injuries on them so we can do this again.
Also, I suspect that I will be called into action again to help with drills, so if anyone had any ideas for good, relatively short drills, mainly for brandy-new EMT-B's and those that are basically first-aiders, please share. Also, any good calls that you could share (without violating HIPAA of course) would be helpful in making scenarios to help train the new kids.
So, I consider the system I've spent most of my time in to be fairly lP optimal. Sure, it's not perfect, but compared to the other systems I've experienced over the past 1.5 years, it worked pretty well. For the most part, BLS calls were handled by BLS crews and ALS calls by ALS crews. Any overlap was due to dispatch and patient reporting, which is normal.
Compare that to a nearby area in which I spend a fair but of time for clinicals. While their system is similar to the one I am most familiar with, they seem to have far fewer BLS units. They also have required every recruit class in the past several years to become medics (at the least, EMT-I's). This means you have a whole bunch of ALS units running BLS calls, and a lot of medics getting burned out quickly.
And a bunch of medic students who getting a poor ALS clinical experience. In my time in that county, I can count on one hand the number of ALS calls I have had, over at least 120 hours.
Now, I know it may seem counter productive to complain...after all, if they want to pay me for being a glorified taxi driver, then by all means. And I understand the desire to provide advanced care for as many people as possible. But in this day and age with budgets being what they are, it may behoove departments to remember that our call volume is generally 80:20 BLS:ALS. It might be a better idea to have more BLS units and strategically place the ALS units to a better advantage. You may find you have better, less burnt out medics, and more money in the bank.
Then again, I'm just a student...what do I know?
