Last week the area that I work in suffered a horrific tragedy: we had a line of duty death of one of our city’s police officers.  The impact of this has been far reaching and very difficult on many of us.  One of the questions that I have heard over the last couple of days has been about scene safety.  The “what if” scenarios are being played out left and right.  “What if we were there?”  “What if it was for a medical call and not a domestic?”  While I too have asked myself these questions, the thing that I keep reminding myself and that I think we all need to remind ourselves is scene safety is not an absolute.  I am not going to talk about specifics of this call however I feel that this is an important topic to reinforce. Kyle David Bates of First Few Moments and Pedi-U fame teaches a class called “Scene Safety Stinks” and I could not agree more with him.  The words “scene safety” and the declaration that the “scene is safe” might give us a piece of mind, but all it truly represents is a false sense of security that we all hold near and dear to our hearts.  We should not “practice scene safety” or even worry about.  What needs to be important is “scene awareness.” Every scene that we are on evolves and changes moment by moment.  Something as simple as the introduction of another family member or a patient uttering the word “ow” in the presence of the family dog could change things in a second, and the number of police officers, fire fighters, or national guard that you have there with you will not be able to prevent whatever happens next.  When responding to any scene, keep the following in mind: 1.  Always have a way to call for help – Cell phones are great, but I’d rather have a radio.  No dialing required, no identifying yourself or asking for anything.  All any of us should need to do is announce our unit number and declare that we need help.  My radio now lives on my hip all the time so I...

In preparation for my quest for the disco patch, I started looking at reciprocity requirements throughout the country and I came to one conclusion: being a paramedic and trying to move is very frustrating.  For the life of me though I cannot figure out why this is. When I went through paramedic school so many years ago, we had a mix of people in my class: there were two of us from New Jersey, many from Massachusetts, one of New Hampshire, and a few from Connecticut.  We went through our Massachusetts approved paramedic class, but not all of us tested in Massachusetts.  A few of my classmates decided to go directly down to Connecticut and test there, as they had no intention of working in an EMS system in the great Commonwealth. Here is how it went: the classmate that I sat right next to who got the same training as I did, took the same tests, did the same amount of field and clinical time drove across a boarder that was less than twenty miles to the south a took a test that was not identical to mine but similar.  Both of us passed.  She worked for a service south of that boarder, and I worked for one to the north of it.  Despite the fact that our training was identical, in order for us to work in each other’s states we each would have more hoops to jump through to again prove our worth as a paramedic. Now, expand that out to a more national scale.  Some states accept certifications from other states as being just as good as certs from their own.  Others only accept National Registry.  Still others feel that National Registry is not even good enough and they require you to come in and take their state’s test.  Still another state on the west coast requires National Registry, a state certification, and then clearance within the specific county you choose to work in if you want to care for their sick and injured. Then there are Oregon and Texas.  Add on to that a minimum of an Associate’s Degree.  While I feel that these two states are right on...

As EMS providers, we deal with tragedy every day.  We see people at their worst and are expected to put on a stern, professional face and take control of each and every scene, but what happens when the person that you are dealing with is one of your own?  Emotions run high, and while the expectation should remain that we put those feelings aside we are, after all, human. Throughout my career, I have had to care for colleagues who have had medical emergencies.  I had to do CPR on a past fire chief from the town I grew up in.  I’ve transported an old crew chief of mine when his heart rate was 40 and he was on his way to get himself a pacemaker.  Tragedy can strike at any time, and although we look at ourselves as impermeable to it, we are just as mortal as everyone else. What it comes back to is knowing our own limitations.  When it is in the best interest of our patient, there is nothing wrong with “tagging out” and letting someone else take control of a call that has a clearer head than you might at that moment.  It takes a clear mind to properly care for a patient and we need to remember that as paramedics and EMTs, we need help sometimes too, and we just need to be humble enough to ask for it. There is a lot of pressure on prehospital providers, and I do not think that many people in the public safety and medical communities realize and accept that.  Often, an EMT or paramedic is expected to deal with a patient on a one-on-one basis.  Take, for instance, a STEMI patient.  Quite often, a single paramedic is expected to obtain baseline vital signs, perform and correctly interpret a 12-lead EKG, give medications, start an IV, reevaluate the patient, and make the proper notifications to the emergency room. If that same patient walked into an ER, the tech would perform the EKG.  One nurse would administer meds and start that IV while another one charted.  The secretary would make the notifications to the cath lab, and the resident or attending physician...

There comes a time when we all reach a crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make a decision of where to go and what to do next.  I reached that point just the other day and have decided that it is time to make some changes in my life.  I’ve realized that there is more out there beyond my little world and I want to go out and explore a bit. The gut checks that I have had to do on myself have been becoming more and more frequent, and I feel that it is time to put myself first, which is something that I frequently fail at.  Far too often I have made my job and other responsibilities while pushing my own well-being to the back burner.  It has never been a smart decision and always seems to go against the “practice what you preach” concept that I advocate for so frequently, but I am learning. Changes take time, and they take effort.  The next steps in my life are going to be a sizeable challenge but if… no.. WHEN the ends justify the means then I know I will be happier and in a better place in life.  The first step for me is an obvious one: my quest for the coveted Disco Patch has begun!  The next six weeks of my life is going to be spent nose in a book studying for an upcoming National Registry test.  From there, the possibilities are limitless. One thing that is not going away or changing is my love for writing.  In fact, my upcoming adventures are a real inspiration and I would like to invite you along for the ride.  It might be a bit bumpy, but eventually things are going to smooth out and everything will be okay. The only question that I have though is: do those disco patches come with a leisure suit or do I have to buy that...

It is hard for me to believe that it has been a whole year since an EF-3 tornado tore its path through Western Massachusetts.  We were very lucky that day.  Loss of life and the occurance of injury was surprisingly low.  Most importantly though I was lucky enough to work with some amazing people that day.  Back on June 13th of last year, I shared some thoughts on the day that I would like to invite you to read. Late last year, however, an even better opportunity was presented to me: I was given the chance to write a chapter for a book called Springfield Tornado: Stories from the Heart.  The book was officially released today, and I am extremely proud of it.  Clicking on the title of the book, or the picture below will take you to the ordering page for the book.  If you ask me, it is worth the read, but of course, I am biased....