Recent content by mariat753

PA, MD etc Hi! I check into this site once in a while still and thought I'd add my two cents...I was a career EMT (yeah, I know, never even became a medic) and decided to go back to school (I already had a bachelor's degree gathering dust) at age 33. I've been a PA for 8 years now. I personally...

You know, that's a brilliant attitude--because everyone works better when they don't feel attacked, and like you said, respect generally ends up being mutual. It makes me sad when I really feel a sense of dread when I have to call 911. Also, who knows when you might need someone else--in a...

Tell her to go for it!! I want to make clear I never regret my years in EMS, but I can honestly say there's almost never a day I get up and don't want to go into work as a PA. I absolutely love it--the endless variety, a constant intellectual challenge (don't get me wrong, of course there are...

Amen. My thoughts exactly.

I think you completely mistook me--I have utter respect for transport teams and obviously for flight crews. The mobile ICUs they run are truly amazing. I just thought it was unfair to say that nurses could easily tranfer to a prehospital environment whereas the opposite was not true--I have not...

The majority of drunks got the bench seat, belted in. I would never finger sweep a drunk, that's asking to lose a finger. I've transported literally hundreds of drunks (okay, the same three homeless guys made up a few hundred), and I couldn't even use the fingers of one hand to count the ones...

It's a great job. Until your knees and back and hips give out from carrying people down row-home stairs. Until you realize that 15 jobs a shift leaves you exhausted, that you're overweight and your cholesterol sucks from too many wolfed down meals and no exercise other than when the elevators...

I know people will hate the way this sounds--but that's what still makes one "education" and the other "training". Although I will say that I have not always seen nurses make an easy transition to the prehospital setting ("true" prehospital versus emergency interfacility transport).;)

I disagree with those who say EMS isn't a good experience for another medical career--I spent 13 years as a career EMT and am a PA now, and those were invaluable years (and fun, and crazy, and a million other adjectives). But it is perhaps not a good choice if you're just using it for a route...

Again, thanks for taking the time. I see both sides, having been on both sides, but I think what I didn't realize before was how asinine a bad attitude makes you look--on both sides. Every job in medicine is hard. And everyone thinks everyone else is an idiot--specialists, primary care...

Thank you for your answer. And hey, part of it was humiliation--I know I should have given her aspirin. (I felt a lot better after yelling about it over the phone to my friend who's still an EMT.) I think a couple of incidents like this (the last one I DIDN'T **** up--the medic still passed...

I've posted here before from "the other side", and I welcome any responses. I was an EMT in an busy urban area for 13 years and put myself through PA school. I still love EMS and have a lot of friends in the field. Today I found myself alone in our internal medicine office when an 84 year old...

Thanks to both of you for your thoughts. Yes, I am thinking of taking a few shifts somewhere...I've got the time now that for the first time my job is 8-5, no weekends, no holidays!!! My cert has lapsed, and it was in NJ, and I'm now in Connecticut-- so I imagine I'm going to have to take the...

Wow, it's great to talk to the EMS community again. I've just got to get this thought out...I spent thirteen years in EMS, everywhere from the suburbs to the inner city. And I remember vividly how most of us looked at doctor's offices like "what a bunch of idiots who don't know anything about...