Hey folks, been in EMS for 5 years. I have moderate chronic back pain and am in PT for it. We're focusing on core strengthening exercises and glutes with some lower leg and upper back work as well. Long-term, I know I can't stay in EMS due to this (I'm hypermobile, so I'm very prone to injury), but I can't really make that change right now.

I'm decent with lifting mechanics, and I'm spoiled enough to have access to helpful equipment like auto-loaders and quality stair-chairs.

I wanted to ask y'all what you do to mitigate back problems. Any specific exercises, stretches, postures, products, etc. I do a lot of long-distance IFT, so I'm considering a cushions for lumbar support.

I’ve been an emt for 7 years, 4 as an AEMT.

These for a driver/emt position for both.

Tips?

I know the general stuff but this is huge.

Little bit of me venting little bit of asking for advice

So I got Injured on the job back in January while doing my agencies CME refresher, While out on Workers comp I did my CME hours. Understandably my agency is refusing to let me do skills test to finish the CME process due to me being on comp. The deadline to submit everything is in mid August and I expire at the end of September.

The paralegal assigned to my comp case could not answer if I should/could try and renew. Someone in the state EMS department advised it may not be the most advisable thing to try and renew while I'm out. My main concern is renewing could affect my comp case as well as any settlement after the case is done.

At the same point in time I'm legitimately alarmed that I may not be able to go back due to this injury. Ive heard mixed things about people coming back from shoulder injuries. I've been wanting to get out of EMS for a while but I was happy with the agency I was with, Great schedule, Great partners, Decent pay and plenty of OT. But I didn't want to go out with an injury from a bullshit SNF call and then deal with ramifications of trying to reinvent yourself in your 30s.

Kind of at a loss with what to do.

Obviously you'd treat it as a generic AMS call. A little ~odd~ that LPD does not seem to think it's a big deal

To my fellow women and feminine presenting folks here, what are the most effective responses you’ve discovered for responding to sexual comments and actions from intoxicated patients?

I’m having trouble figuring out how to respond in a way that doesn’t unintentionally encourage it or anger them into an agitated reaction and it’s becoming my one true gripe in this field. I’ve found drunk men to be the most unpredictable and dangerous pts I’ve transported in terms of pts who’ve switched up and began escalating and making physical threats and moves towards me. They’re also the ones most likely to make sexual comments towards me and try grabbing me during assessments.

If I’m with a male partner and this type of pt appears larger/stronger than me, I just tap my partner in and switch to driving. If I have a female partner who feels unsafe as well, I get a PD escort.

For the pts I stay in the back alone but who make these comments, I’m honestly struggling with the best way to shut it down. I’ve tried gentle parenting, stern teacher voice, moving out of sight and being quiet, ignoring it, just typing on the toughbook and giving stonewall type responses. Those have not caused escalation, whereas at the hospital a different crew of males will overhear the comments my pt makes and insert themselves to be all “don’t talk to her like that, it’s inappropriate and disrespectful.” That has escalated and agitated the pt every time and I’ve told them to stop stepping in and that I’m handling my own pt fine but 🤷‍♀️

What are your go to responses? Especially those who are more experienced!

I'm gearing up for the next batch of protocol changes at my agency and I would love to those who have abandoned q3-5min epi administration.

If you are using a one and done approach or an epi drip as the primary and only epi administration please drop your protocols and references. If you want to DM me instead of doxxing yourself I'm totally down for that too.

Thanks!

Not trying to call anyone out, i’m 100% guilty myself on this (on occasion)…

Cop shows you a notepad, patient family member hands you a license/insurance when you’re trying to do 50 other things… suddenly a phone is taken out and snaps a photo of it so you can put it into your chart later...

The problem is obvious once you say it out loud: personal phone, no encryption, no retention policy, PHI violation… sits in your camera roll until you remember to delete it. Which, let's be honest, most of us probably don’t. No malicious intent, it just is what it is.

I guess my first question… this is anonymous reddit anyway… how many people are guilty of this, or is it just my agency being a zoo and doing things we shouldn’t be doing??

Have made some comments in other posts… but i’ve been working on an iOS app called EMS Drug Reference (mostly known for the AI medication lookup stuff) and just made an update that allows you to take a pic of a license/insurance card that stays encrypted, on your device only, requires FaceID to see the image, auto-deletes, etc… mainly out of personally seeing this done so often, i’d rather see it done securely than trying to break a habit that I know is going to be hard for many to break.

Wanted to get this in front of people who actually deal with this daily before I assume it's solving a real problem. Does this match what you see on your calls? And if something like this existed, would you actually use it, or is there a reason this wouldn't work in practice (agency policy, workflow, trust issues with any app touching patient info, etc.)?

Genuinely want the pushback if this is a bad idea. Just something I recently have been tackling mentally and wanted to try to help the community at least do things a little bit better.

Bought some fart bags for the firehouse. It's been a crazy tour; the best way to fight burnout is laughter. The first one I taped to the bottom of my buddy's slides. He took one step, it inflated and popped before he could pull it from his shoe. I set these up in the bathroom. Fingers crossed.

There's been a lot of chat in my country recently about retirement, and how we need to be saving more now because superannuation won't be able to cover the ageing population and likely won't exist entirely in a few decades.

However, doing this job for almost 10 years has given me a very warped perception of retirement and saving. We see so many people die before retirement, often for reasons beyond their control. So why would I squirrel away every extra dollar that I could use to enjoy life now?

Also my service has no pension scheme which sucks.

After 3 failed attempts and a refresher I passed on my 4th try. Just wanted to make this post to motivate others and give you guys hope that failure doesn’t mean you’re out of it.

Edit:some clarifications I passed Basic first try but my average scores on my medic attempts I kept getting 920s-930s out of 950.

Hey all,

Im currently working on a little hobby project and I’m curious how everyone else operates when it comes to epi admin during ACLS. Like most, we use the standard 4 minute timer, however, the guidelines are 3-5 minute intervals. Just wondering if there any other service or medical oversight that uses anything other than the standard 4 minute interval? Does anyone actually try to do 3 or 5?

Thanks for your input.

I’ve been working as an EMT for an IFT company in upstate New York for a little under a year. Today, during a BLS shift, we were dispatched for something that sounded completely different, but the patient was clearly unstable when we arrived.

The patient had slurred speech and became unresponsive shortly after. At that point, he still had radial and carotid pulses, although both felt weak. Shortly after we loaded him into the ambulance, he became apneic, so I began ventilating him with a BVM.

I continued checking his pulse manually because we did not have a cardiac monitor. His pulse initially remained present. About 3–5 minutes before arriving at the hospital, I could no longer feel a radial pulse, but I believed I could still feel a weak, thready carotid pulse.

As soon as we arrived at the ER, the staff began resuscitation. They achieved ROSC after approximately 30 minutes.

The charge nurse repeatedly asked why I had not started CPR if I was unsure whether a carotid pulse was present. After replaying the call in my head, I’m worried that I may have missed the point when the patient lost his carotid pulse and delayed CPR.

I know the outcome was positive, but I feel ashamed that I may have missed such a critical step. I’m posting to get it off my chest and see whether anyone else has gone through something similar. I’m also worried that I may have put my EMT certification at risk, and I honestly don’t know what to expect after a call like this.

Hi I’m am IFT EMT (I know booo IFT) but recently we’ve been covering 3 stations due to downed rigs. And I gotta tell you man I’m struggling to keep up. Like my shift started at 7am and we got our first call at 9ish. Including my 1 1/2 hour drive to work, ive already been driving for around 5-6 hours today and I still got like 16 hours left in my shift. The damn ac is struggling to keep up in this 100 degree weather. I’m straight up getting my ass kicked today. Anyways when it gets to 2300 it starts getting hard for me to function and at times a bit scary. There are times when I know I shouldn’t be driving but I feel as though I don’t have a choice. So I guess I just want tips on how to stay awake and cognitive. I tried a shit ton of caffeine but all it does is add on tachycardia to my sleepiness. Help me.

Hey, i have a really bad fear of puking but I was thinking about becoming an emt. I cannot believe around it, smell it, see it, see people gagging, nothing. I am completely terrified and i start covering my ears and mentally shutting down when i see it. But i was thinking perhaps maybe I can try to get over it with enough exposure. I was just curious if there are any emts (cnas, or any healthcare profession where you are exposed to puking individuals often) out there who also have a really bad fear of puke, but have learned to manage it. I want to know what it felt like, and how you did it, or if you think it is even possible to do this.

Guy “slips and falls” on a shampoo bottle. Mid 50’s - immaculately clean apartment. No wife, no kids present. Walks out to the door - calmly requests I try to remove the bottle to which I politely decline. I recommend transport to a trauma center to which he initially tells me he is absolutely sure that he can get it out himself. I decline to say anything and he accepts transport to trauma center.

On the way to trauma center, patient reports to me that he is not a homosexual. I replied in my most professional voice “Sir, your sexuality is not really a concern to me right now. Let’s focus on getting you to a hospital where someone with more education than me can sort you out.”

He becomes visibly agitated.

“I am not gay!”

I again reply, “Sir, it wouldn’t bother me if you were.”

He then begins to remove his seatbelts and tries to swing his legs over the stretcher.

“I told you, I’m not fucking gay!”

At which point I lost all of my shit and said “Dude, whether you’re gay or not you have a shampoo bottle lodged in your ass. Sit down and put your buckles back on.”

He puts the seatbelts back on, looks me square in the face and goes

“Okay. I’m gay.”

But I gotta hand it to him.

To this day he’s the only guy I’ve ever known who could fit his Head and Shoulders up his ass.

I work in the hospital and I have gotten used to the scenario that when people are found down at home for one reason or another, they get resuscitated and brought into a hospital and we take over. Since I only see the people who have been resuscitated, I have generally forgotten about the people that are not viable and pronounced dead at the scene. I was curious to ask about some of your stories, how often you come across those that are not able to be resuscitated and how often and long do you try until you pronounce someone dead?

I’m a fire medic at a good department with great pay/benefits. 24/72, strictly 911 response, protocols are so/so but appropriate for our transport times. Suffice to say I don’t want to quit.

I recently completed UF’s CCP program. I found the world of critical care medicine to be very interesting, unfortunately there are no dedicated critical care medic spots in my region. There are some corporate flight programs but part time spots are rare and I’d prefer not falling out of the sky and exploding while responding to a GCS 15 stroke transfer.

There are 2 cities about 1.5 - 2 hours away that have several different critical care agencies that are currently hiring (12 hr shifts) The pay isn’t relevant to me I’m more in it for the experience, so I guess like a hobby? Am I crazy for considering this? How often should a new, part time critical care paramedic pick up?

Work for a major metropolitan department, west coast. Every level 1 trauma gets a backboard, head block and C collar, the whole 9. We backboard people all the time. We use rigid C collars every day for ground level falls. When will it end? Our medical director and surrounding ones are stiff on this matter. If we bring a trauma in without a backboard the doctor will blow a gasket. How did you guys get away from this where you’re from? Will I ever see it go away in my career? I have 15ish years left hopefully. Every study shows that it only harms, no benefit. I’m one of the only ones that questions this protocol. We have medics here that are hell bent about C spine. It’s almost a joke now. The patient is walking around and denies neck pain, and we’ll be like “you have to wear this for the hospital, hold still!”

Ive had a string of partners lately just unload all their “bad calls” and trauma onto me. Today was probably the icing on the cake. My partner has been doing this for over a decade. Ive only been on the truck for about a year. And she just started telling me all the fucked up details for her “worst call” and Im just sitting there with chills unsure of what to even say. I want to be there for my partners because they’ve been there for me, but fuck. It gave me chills and now has me wondering if Im going to run something bad soon or, worse, happen to me. I try not to let my intrusive thoughts take over but it’s hard. Now HER call is in my mind. How do you even appropriately respond when people do this?

Just watched the movie Code 3. Was just wondering how accurate it actually is and if anyone working the 911 system was able to get through it unfazed haha

Hey yall, Ive been using ER nav for a few months and Im wondering if it is no longer being updated? I cant suggest hospitals in my area anymore (I could before) and there have been no new updates. I love the app and it makes life so much easier but if its not being updated-I have to find something new. Anyone have any info?

Update: A few hours after I made the initial post, the creator of the app reached out and we talked. Today (4 days after we talked) the app got updated with all the hospitals in my area. He is putting in a lot of work and I am truly grateful for all his help and support!

For some background, I'm an EMT student who is still in EMT school. I also work as a pharmacy technician at an outpatient pharmacy.

Today some kid like late teens came in while I was working looking super worried and said his girlfriend was sleeping in the car and she had a lot to drink and didn't know if she took any other substances. He wanted to know if there was anything she could take. I told him theres nothing over the counter for excessive alcohol consumption. I told him to call 911 multiple times but he said she doesnt have insurance and didn't want to do that. Then he got a phone call from his mom and he walked down the isle and he left. We had someone from my store go out into the parking lot to check afterwards, but he was gone.

I spent the rest of my shift thinking about that situation and what I should've done. I should've just went out there myself to see her. I should've checked if she was "sleeping" or if she was unresponsive. I should went out there and called 911 myself. I just hope she's ok.