I am a paramedic student and my preceptor sent me this. I am a little confused and would like some help.

https://x.com/MemeKingx/status/1864254546765115603/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1864254546765115603&currentTweetUser=MemeKingx

Just wondering the things you’ve said or heard in this field that only make sense in the field, today I was told “hand me that leg” During the call it made sense, but after the fact I thought it was a pretty funny thing to say

Hi ! I have been working in EMS for six years and just obtained my paramedic licensure. My service requires new paramedics to do one month of shifts with another paramedic before going out on our own. My job placed me on a FSS 16:45-05:45 shift that I did not get a say on. The differentials are great. Cool. Whatever. I was on nights for most of my time in EMS before paramedic school.

But, I am 9 weeks pregnant and have experienced miscarriage before. I am worried about the risks that nights may have to my pregnancy (i.e. sleep disruption, weird eating patterns, etc).

Anyone who has worked weird shifts or night shifts while pregnant with any advice or tips would be great. I'm just super worried and maybe even being a little neurotic. Idk.

Thanks!

How many times have you guys been stopped by a locked door?

I saw an edc thread on this sub and I was wondering if it was worth it (or even legal) to carry lockpicks on you.

My guess is its hella illegal but I guess I was wondering about the specifics

Uh now that im seeing locked doors are a huge problem... do lockpicks seem that crazy?

Does anyone here have any advice on how to set up my new Littman EKO stethoscope with the app? It is asking me to verify my provider status using the 10 digit number of my provider ID, but my state’s EMS license number only has six digits. Anyone have any advice? Any help at all would be appreciated.

I was talking with a coworker recently who was describing a way she positions patients with non-traumatic back pain to help ease the discomfort. This got me curious about other ways of positing a patient to relieve pain in different areas of the body beyond splinting and such. Obviously you start with asking the patient about their position of comfort, but I've had several patients not know how to position to be more comfortable. Does anyone have any tricks for pillow padding or stretcher placement to help with specific pain/discomfort?

What do y’all carry?

I just had an interesting experience on the other side of a call I ran hundreds of times in my career.

I was riding my bike through a parking lot when an acquaintance who was also riding through stopped me. A car was in the parking lot parked across three spaces with a man slumped to the side at the wheel. She just wanted someone there while she checked on him. We both tried to wake him (verbally) several times through his partially open passenger window. He would wake but would not move anything but his head and mumbled unintelligibly.

I noticed drug paraphernalia on the seat next to him, so I thought it was probably prudent to call 911.

The ambulance came, and the medic woke him up verbally. He sat up, A+Ox4, answered all questions appropriately and refused care.

I don't know how many times I went on a call like this and ended up thinking, "You didn't even try to wake him up." But this time, the paramedic did nothing different than I did to get him to wake up. I'm glad he wasn't more of a problem, but I felt like a jerk for calling them out for nothing.

I think I love EMS/Healthcare a little too much... I love learning and I am halfway through paramedic school!

I am about to begin my first ambulance job (911) and I want to freshen up on my skills before I begin. I have spent the time since I’ve gotten my EMT doing lifeguarding so I’m a bit rusty on my medical skills. I don’t have my textbook anymore since it was an online version that expired after sometime. Please send any valuable resources you recommend to get my skills up so I don’t look like a fool on day 1. Thanks!

Has anyone here taken long term leave for mental health reasons? I really think I need six months or so off to get my head right, but I don’t want to lose my job. I don’t even know if it’s something that’s available to me since we’re extremely short staffed.

Next question is— is it possible to get paid disability or something similar if I am granted the leave?

I have a well documented mental health hx, & work for AMR in California if that’s relevant information.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Does anyone in here know what the process is for an EMS agency to upgrade from A BLS ambulance to ALS-Paramedic. I was having a conversation with one of the guys in my counties emergency management department and we were discussing the staffing requirements of upgrading an existing BLS agency to ALS. Any one have any idea here?

Now, I'll start by admitting that I'm being a little melodramatic, considering I'm about to complain about sleeping at work, but here's my issue.

The coworker I relieve in the morning on one of my shifts consistently gets out an hour late. Like clockwork, even though the shift ends at 0600, he doesn't get out of bed until 0700. Now, being the only bunkroom available, it's been getting increasingly frustrating when I come into work after only getting 3 or 4 hours of sleep, due to working at my primary agency the evening prior, to find I have to kick around for an hour before I can try to catch a quick nap to start my shift.

Now I can understand if he'd be sleeping in after a busy night or needed a little extra rest rarely, but it's every single shift, regardless of if they turned a wheel or not. This coworker is also consistently late to relieve others, and on multiple times in the past screwed me over as cooking and eating his dinner was more important than relieving the day shift on a standby when they were supposed to be home a half hour ago.

Am I overreacting? I feel like throwing a fit over not bring able to sleep my first hour of work is pretty dramatic, but this combined with other prior actions of this co-worker has made it increasingly frustrating every time I come in to relieve him.

Before anyone asks, no, talking to management won't do anything. It's been tried before with this coworker mainly regarding his tardiness, and nothing happens. It seems to me the right path to take is to talk to him and explain my position, to see if we could maybe figure it out the two of us? I just needed to rant a little bit and wanted to know what route to take. Essentially, am I the asshole?

Let’s say you’re the first to arrive at the scene of a cardiac arrest patient. You have a BVM available. At what point would it be appropriate to stop compressions to grab the BVM, if ever?

Yesterday my partner and I witnessed a driver going the wrong way on a one way road. His car stopped so we decided to pull over and check him out. V Fib is what she wrote! Worked him for 15 mins and got ROSC. I was told he is alert in the ICU. Crazy coincidence. What have you guys seen?

This morning I had to go to the court house for mother. She got in a fender bender and I went to make things right since she didn't have her cars insurance info and got a few tickets. I'm at the Sally port to metal detectors talking to some deputies I had as LEO E MT students. The call went up for man down. We stepped over to an Approximate 65 yo African American male down no breathing and no pulse. The guys brought up the AED I administer one shock still no breathing no pulse CPR started airway cleared manually.We swapped out positions and I took off my Carhartt jacket and fleece beanie because I was sweating my balls off. I put the hoodie and beany on the xray machine counter and went to side right to do CPR. The ALS first responder rolled in and he secured the ET tube as I spiked a I.V. line the ALS bus pulled up and my old ass was gassed so I tagged out to a AEMT provider and the white shirt deputy took me to wash up in the ready room. I got clean and went out to grab my Carhartt and beanie. I couldn't find them! The deputy rolled back the CCTV, and you clearly see a guy pick them up and put my Carhartt on and walk out the Sally! Scum bag stole my jacket as I was doing the code! The white shirt recognized the guy he is a local multi douche bag DWI champ. The deputy sheriffs are going to go say hello at 3 am and get my jacket back and talk about his new specialty collecting theft tickets to add to his DWI ticket pile. I hate NY!

We're all a little dumb sometimes. I'll start us off.

In patients who are about to die, why does it sometimes look like a massive STEMI on the 4-lead but not on the 12?

Why do we plug the ambulance in at lower-volume places, but never at higher volume even though the trucks sometimes sit for hours or days between crews?

Came across these shows depicting private EMS in Mexico City.

The first is a documentary on Pluto TV.

https://pluto.tv/us/on-demand/movies/61661b696e3813001a89c0af?utm_medium=deeplink&utm_source=justwatch

Apple TV+ developed a series based on the documentary.

https://tv.apple.com/us/episode/dia-de-muertos/umc.cmc.3slawwvmhvkqknru7r73v4ylo?showId=umc.cmc.1xkd0bjglgv5x1jxiteog2833&playableId=tvs.sbd.4000%3AA0035501008

If you have access to both I suggest watching the documentary first.

From what I've read, at least in the US, many paramedics advocate for quality stethoscopes to listen to heart sounds. From where I'm from, paramedics don't do that in the field although it's (very briefly) taught to us in school. Not even the doctors in scenes often listen to them, nor have I ever heard it would've affected the case. Do you, who listen to them in the field, get some useful information out of it that could affect the treatment of the patient or be useful information for the ER?

Hey all! Just wondering what everyone who DOESN'T have access to RSI is using for intubation of patients requiring an advanced airway. For us (NL Canada) we are unable to carry paralytics, or sedatives like propofol. So for our advanced airway management we are limited to oral lidocaine, fentanyl or morphine, and midazolam. Most medics feel this is inadequate, particularly in patients who are awake, and hypotensive, and require an advanced airway. We do use ijel airways and I personally find them to work well. But I feel we could really benefit from a medication like Ketamine or propofol despite the fact that it isn't in our protocols.

Who has worked on the ambulance with the highest mileage? My current best is 447,405 on one of the NHS's finest Mercedes sprinters.

So, here's the thing. The agency I work for services the foothills of Appalachia, and we have pretty significant portions of our area that have little to no cellular coverage (and some areas don't even have radio coverage) because of the massive valleys. I've been tasked with looking at solutions to get us connectivity in these areas so that we can have communications.

I kind of am looking at two separate things: a day-to-day setup for the rigs so crews can have their MDT and transmit 12 leads and that kind of thing, and something a little more robust for our supervisor vehicles that can be used when we set up command posts.

I've looked around the internet, and found things like WeBoost cellular boosters, IP Access routers, Dejero routers, Starlink, and Cradlepoint. Of course every company is going to give me the sales pitch when I get in touch with them of "Our product is the best!" and I'll try to do demos and all that. I'd like some recommendations from the people on the ground, though, to really get a picture of what different solutions look like in practice.

So, y'all, what do you have for me?

Licensed in IL but wanting to get my license to practice in Ohio. Will my IL license be void if I get licensed in Ohio? Anyone know if this is a headache of a process or p simple? Much thanks

Hi. I’m not in the medical field but I can’t get answers to my questions. Maybe you guys can help.

In my CPR class I learned that rescue breaths are no longer recommended because there is still some oxygen in the person’s blood, chest compressions move the chest, and people will be more likely to do it if they don’t have to do mouth to mouth. Ok, great, but what about after the person runs out of oxygen? How long does that take? The chest can move all day but if you don’t tip their head back how is new air even getting in? I imagine if the person turns blue they’re going to need some air. And what about drowning?

Just like the title asks, how can you be better? More specifically, how can you be a better provider?

For those who’ve overcome and have made positive changes, how/what did you do?

For me, while it’s not some drastic thing, I try to make every single one of my patients laugh or at the VERY LEAST smile (within reason….obviously I’m not onscene at an arrest cracking jokes). I’ve found that when I’m really run down on shift and just want to go home, putting in that extra effort to make a patient chuckle changes my entire mood and demeanor.

I’ve learned a lot and have made a lot of changes regarding how I “operate” in the field but I’ve found that just making a patient laugh a little can go a long way

Anyone in here a horton specialist and know what the hell this means or how we can fix it? our fleet people have tried time and time again to fix it with no luck. comcast method does not work. it also came up with a screen asking for a code, and something about connecting to a usb.