Just gotta vent...

[docrodg]

If you want your drug fix and can't get your narcotic of choice don't call me you dumb B***tard, I am not gonna call med control and get approval to give you morphine then fill out 3 different forms with 8 different signatures just so you can get a "fix" when I could be at home working on my engine and drinking a beer! Same goes for the "vomiting for 3 days" idiot I took in earlier because you wanted to be seen faster and figured my bright flashing lights were gonna do something. Guess what? When I call the doc on the radio and say "Triage" that means you will get taken straight to the waiting room on the stretcher, told to get off, and wait your turn. I could be working on my engine heads!

Thank you, rant over! Hopefully tomorrow I can actually get some work done on my day off, providing no more idiots have an "emergency" that requires me to sit in the back of the rig and stare at a heart monitor for 30 minutes for no good reason.

[tevake]

Some time you just got to think about some of the folks that have lived thru their health crisis cause you were there to hold it together for them so they could make to the hospital and return to their families.
Thanks for what you do.

Cheers Richard

[docrodg]

I try... but dang-it... seems like most of them either have no crisis or created their own.

I should love stupid people, they are my job security!

[oldE]

An EMT friend of mine says, "We meet people who make bad decisions."

I joke with him and say the magic words to make an EMT appear are, "Hold my beer and watch this!"

Hang in there.
Let's not meet by accident.
Les

[widgeon13]

This all sounds very familiar.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by widgeon13

This all sounds very familiar.

As a former medivac pilot, yes it does...

[GH85Carrera]

A friend of mine is a oral surgeon. He was treating a patient for oral cancer from years of using Skoal. After a 12 hour surgery to remove half of the guys jaw and a few weeks of recovery he finds out the moron was still using.

Thanks for your work saving lives of those that need your help. Now get back to your heads.

[Zeke]

Reminds me of a story a friend of mine told me. He was an EMT at the time. He and his partner picked up the same guy almost every shift. One time they were called out to pick him up much later in the same shift, like almost 24 hrs. later.

They took the long way in. The guy was DOA. End of problem.

[azasadny]

I was a paramedic on an ambulance crew on a Marine Corps base.... You would not believe what I've seen!!

[Hugh R]

You guys have responded to my 84 y/o MIL who lives with use and is diabetic more than once. Each time we found her on the floor totally out of it, and yep there was a donut involved every time.

[HHI944]

Originally Posted by azasadny

I was a paramedic on an ambulance crew on a Marine Corps base.... You would not believe what I've seen!!

Ugh, sadly, I would. 'Hold my beer and watch this' isn't just for rednecks....

[docrodg]

Sadly we have a lot of diabetics up here. The disease can really mess up your body. Not to mention the ones with tiny veins make it so hard to give them IV Dextrose thru a 20G needle.

[RWebb]

are you an internist?

I am willing to bet you are neither a DVM nor a hospitalist...

Anyway, what happened to the nurses? Aren't you supposed to rant to them?

[docrodg]

You are right, I am not a DVM or a hospitalist; I am a Medic, have been for 20+ years, including 8 years time in the Army in a field hospital which really has an expanded scope of practice. Nurses? they are half our problem! Local hospital is staffed with cheapest nurses they could find. When I was working in Los Angeles it was so different, they listened to us, actually tried to treat patients in a reasonable time, and were ready to take over the patient when we arrived. Here... not so much.

[tweezers74]

The whole healthcare industry is in shambles. Nurses who are young (as in years as a nurse) usually went into it for the shortage and enticement of bonuses and job stability, not because they really want to be caring nurses. I know this because I am a nurse. Most are in that "entitlement" thinking group of nowadays.

As far as patients, yes, frustrating when they know how to take advantage of the system so we can't take care of the people that really need it and deserve it. Which is why healthcare loses a lot of good clinicians. We get frustrated by the system.

I hear your pain. I have lived it. That is why I get burnt out and go back and forth between direct patient care and something else. But for some reason, I get sucked back in every couple of years.

[RWebb]

ah, now I got it

you will be pleased to hear that nurses gripe about EMTs a lot too

on a brighter note, a friend of mine has just implemented Phase TWO of his withdrawal from being a surgeon - he is WAY happy

[docrodg]

They have been trying thee expanded scope in the US in some cities lately to try and reduce ER load. Us medics doing the eval on-scene and contacting med control so the doc can prescribe proper meds etc. for the patient if they are non-emergent. It has helped quite a bit.

Problem is, even with equal time in education, and years of good experience us medics still do not even get recognized as licensed, only as certified. Then insult to injury every three years we have to go thru a refresher course to re-certify rather than CE credits as in other similar jobs. Yet where I am we still have to do CE credits every 6 months. Plus work side by side with docs in Surgical, peds, ICU, and ER every 3 years. I enjoy the extra time and don't mind the education, we need to keep up on that stuff anyway, but some folks just think we know how to put on band-aids.

[docrodg]

Originally Posted by RWebb

ah, now I got it

you will be pleased to hear that nurses gripe about EMTs a lot too

on a brighter note, a friend of mine has just implemented Phase TWO of his withdrawal from being a surgeon - he is WAY happy

Glad he is. Unfortunately it is in my blood too much to withdraw from this. Tried, did not succeed.

Medics gripe about EMTs too... I swear half of them check the rig suction unit at start of shift by sticking it in their ear and sucking out their brains.

Doctors gripe about nurses, nurses gripe about medics and EMTs, and medics gripe about EMTs. Sucks to be an EMT.

[porsche4life]

We saw plenty of the idiots in the pharmacy.... I always loved the ones that would gripe about being overweight, picking up diet drugs, and then go to the checkout and buy a snickers with their drugs....

[azasadny]

When I was in the USN, I taught EMT-1A, EMT-D, EMT-P and ACLS, ATLS, NALS and PALS. I was a surgical tech, but I liked emergency care more, but did both for almost 9 years. I drove an ambulance in Okinawa and Camp Pendleton, CA and NOTHING was as crazy as a pay weekend on a Marine Corps base! Motorcycle accidents took up our weekends, especially on pay days, when everyone had some $ for alcohol. I don't miss those days!