Recent content by platon20

Epinephrine is a nonselective alpha/beta agonist. Selective inhaled beta2 agonists such as albuterol are superior for pediatric asthma compared to epinephrine. Epinephrine should only be used as an adjunct after multiple trials of inhaled beta2 agonists have failed and after steroids have...

Giving epinephrine before solumedrol for pediatric asthma is stupid. The standard of care for pediatric asthma is rapid acting beta agonist first followed by IV/IM steroids. PERIOD. Epinephrine is a distant 3rd/4th option along with mag sulfate.

When you say "trouble breathing" you need to specify what that means, because babies can have "trouble breathing" in a variety of ways. Is the baby grunting? Having retractions? Tachypnea? Apneic? Non rebreathers and other passive ventilation methods are absolutely worthless in neonates...

Screw that. Why settle for allied health when you can tell people that you graduated from medical school? Think that's ridiculous? Well thats exactly what the PA grads do at schools where the PA program is organized under the school of medicine.

This is correct, but the way to fix it is to make EMS training MORE like residency. Not to turn EMS into some kind of "med school lite" where we spend hours on topics that mean little in terms of clinical relevance in the field. If I have a 50 year old dude in the field with altered mental...

I'm not anti-education either. But when "education" means pulling you out of clinical/field training and strapping tens of thousands of debt on your shoulders with NO EVIDENCE TO INDICATE THAT IT CREATES SUPERIOR PARAMEDICS then yes, I'm against it. Your 2nd paragraph is spot-on. Med...

By your location in Ft Worth, I assume you attend TCOM. According to their website, their tuition cost per year is 18k per year and their total cost of attendance is 44k per year. That comes out to 72k and 177k for 4 years. If your numbers are to be believed that means you only paid 8k...

There are much better ways to filter people that work better and are cheaper than dumping 30k in a classroom so a PhD can lecture you on the intricacies of aquaporin water channels and their role in the regulation of SIADH

If you offered me classroom education at an AFFORDABLE PRICE that is non-mandatory, then yes I would take it. Education for its own sake is good. But colleges/universities arent providing education for its own sake, they are providing it for a profit. A profit that YOU are going to pay for in...

LMAO do you HONESTLY think that the academics that control a degree pathway for EMT/paramedics are going to stop with an AAS? I dont think an AAS is bad. Problem is that 10 years down the line it will turn from AAS into B.S. Ten years after that it will turn from B.S. into M.S. Ten years...

There's a lot of threads on this forum about how basic EMTs need bachelors degrees, paramedics need masters degrees, etc Going down the degree pathway is fool's gold. Consider the case of physicians. By any standard they have by far the most formal training. Over 10,000 hours of...

1. You do NOT complete the "same curriculum" as MDs do. Yes you get a sample of it but you dont go thru nearly the same number of clinical rotations they do, nor do you get the same exposure to subjects such as histology, embryology, etc. 2. Residency is NOT the same as "on the job"...

3 person job? No way, 2 people max. One to hold the baby in flexed position, the other does the tap. I'll say this again -- 3rd year med students with zero procedure/clinical experience do LPs all the time. A paramedic is certainly going to be better at it than a med student would be.

LP is a much more benign procedure than a chest tube. Hell I would argue it is a much more benign procedure than intubation, especially in pediatrics patients who are much more likely to experience intubation-related laryngospasm. So should be we be removing privileges for intubation for...

I see no reason why an advanced paramedic couldnt be trained to do amputations and thoracotomies in the field. Instead of taking the surgeon out of the OR, train the paramedic to be the field surgeon.