The 11th Hour Syndrome

Last Thursday, I was given the opportunity to participate in an episode of EMS Garage. The topic that night was Liability, and revolved around a news story from Missouri. You can read about it here but the gist of it is this: A crew goes to a chest pain call. They evaluate the patient, tell him its most likely GERD and has him sign a refusal. Later, his family calls 9-1-1 again, and the patient, who is still having difficulty breathing and chest pain, is transported to the hospital where it is revealed that he actually has a Pulmonary Embolism. He dies later that day. First of all, in my eyes, there is no defending this crew. They went outside of their scope of practice, and gave advice that they did not have the right or the training to give. If they had done the right thing from the start and said “well, we don’t know why you’re having this chest pain, but let’s go to the hospital and find out” then this patient might have had a different outcome. I was lucky to be on with a great panel, and there were lots of thoughtful, well informed points made. I urge everyone to take a listen to it. One of the most interesting points and topics to me though was about what should be called “The 11th Hour Syndrome.” Wonder what that is? Well, the 11th Hour Syndrome is what makes a Paramedic change the way they take care of their patient when it’s close to the end of their shift. Do your speed, depth of assessment, and motive change just because it’s almost time to go home? It shouldn’t, but in some cases, it just might. Whether you’re rushing through your assessment, looking at a poor 12-lead because its “good enough” and bypassing that occasional necessary prep work to get a good clean picture, or trying to burn through that last Patient Care Report, the only person that suffers is the person who is receiving the care you’re providing. The hours that one works in EMS can be demanding. This is not your typical 9-5 Monday through Friday job and I think...

Pay to Play? No Way.

Imagine its late in the afternoon. You’re home doing some chores around the house, and you look outside, and notice smoke coming from your garage. What’s the first thing that you do? Pick up your phone and call 911. Somewhere, a dispatcher presses the magic buttons, and a Fire Department is en route to you. What would your reaction be if the Fire Department said “Nope. We’re not showing up.” What would you think as you watched that fire spread to your house and consume all of your possessions? I’d be pretty angry. That’s exactly what happened in South Fulton, TN last week. For the full story, take a look at this link and come on back. FireNation.com Article What it comes down to is this: A family lost their home, their pets, and all of their belongings over a $75 subscription fee that was unpaid. I’ve seen many different view points about this as I’ve surfed the Blogsphere this morning, and some of them really bothered me. There are Firefighters out there who stood up applauded saying that everything went just as planned, and rules are rules. My question to them is: Why are you a firefighter? Why do you do the job? Thats right. I’m questioning your integrity, and your willingness to do what you pledged to do. I have no experience as a firefighter. ZERO. I am very content standing outside of the burning building, so I’ve never walked in your shoes. I have, however, been to many, many fire scenes, and I’ve never once heard a firefighter ask “I wonder what kind of home owner’s insurance these people have.” They are there to help, and do what they have to do to put the fire out and save both life and property. With the help of some twitter friends, some research about the South Fulton Fire Department was done, and here’s what we came up with: The Department is staffed by approximately 20 Fire Fighters, only one of which, the Chief, is full time. The rest of the Department is Volunteer. They have five pieces of Apparatus. Two Pumpers, one Tanker, a “Command Unit” and one Brush unit. Finally, according...

Going Pink

For the next couple of weeks, I am changing my Blog Layout to Pink to support my good friend, April Saling, AKA Epi_Junky and EMS for the Cure, a group dedicated to raising money for research and spreading awareness about Breast Cancer. I urge each and every one of you in the Blogging community to do the same. Head on over to Justin Schorr’s blog, and watch his video supporting EMS for the...

Expo Recap from 34,000 Feet!

I’ve been doing some thinking over the last couple of days about how I wanted to share my experiences at EMS Expo 2010 with everyone. Do I take it hour by hour and class by class? Do I just give a brief overview? All of the bloggers that I spent time with in Dallas had different solutions. Well, I think I’ve found something that is going to work best for me. I’ve decided to break my experiences at EMS Expo 2010 in Dallas into three categories: The Events, The Education, and The People. The Events Needless to say, there were plenty of these, both of the official and the unofficial nature. If you read the Blog last week, you’ve already seen what we did on Tuesday night for what is now known as “Expo Eve.” Wednesday was just as much fun. After doing a Podcast with the Generation Medicine team, and finishing up the day with a couple of classes, it was off to the JEMS Blogger Meetup at the Rooftop bar of the Gator Croc and Roc. The food was good, and the conversation was even better. I was able to meet many influential people like AJ Heightman, Editor-in-Chief of JEMS, and Rick Kendrick, the inventor of the Kendrick Extrication Device or KED for short. Anyone who has been through EMT or Paramedic school has used this great piece of equipment, and most likely has had to test out on it as part of their certification. Rick had a lot to say about his product, and at one point was holding court with seven or eight of us surrounding him and listening intently, as he described concepts like Pounds per Square Inch and padding. From there, it was off to the One Eyed Penguin for a Darts Tournament. I’ll spare you the messy details of the match, and just tell you that Kyle David Bates and I, better known as Team First Few Moments, beat Team EMS Garage, Chris Montera and Annie Robinson. Lots of beer was had, and lots of great conversations and laughs were shared. Thursday morning marked what might have been the highlight of my trip to Dallas. Details of...