Recent content by Sunburn

From medical standpoint absolutely. From legal standpoint, not as much. Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely against unnecessary resuscitations and prolonging of suffering, but in those situations you have to cover your own bum first.

OK, murder by DNR is one thing, but would you resuscitate a 35 y/o that you found hanging by the neck from the rope, still warm and viable with a hand written DNR pinned to his shirt?

A bit tricky. Yeah, in 91 y/o case I would, and indeed have not begun CPR. But in the cases where the patient has no immediate terminal illness and where resuscitation would not just prolong suffering and only the family or incomplete docs claim DNR I would feel obliged to circumvent those...

That is kinda bull. You chart the sat anyway, doesn't have to be on the strip. Wouldn't exactly call it a problem with this strip. Looks like she or he is more interested in teaching you red tape than medicine.

Exactly. Diagnosing anything from a single lead is pointless. It's a blind men describing an elephant problem. But the question was not to find diagnosis, it was to find what is not normal with that strip, and the answer to that is solved :P

And that is apparently the difference between my and your work - we don't get standards, we get equipment. If you hate it tough luck, still gotta wear it :P

Yeah, I'd very much like to see 12 lead. Sure you would not dg nSTEMI from a single II lead, but that is the only single problem with that ECG tracing. His BP is a tad high too which is consistent with partial blockage and/or myocardial distress. I'd like to see the patient and 12-lead for sure...

That BPM is around 100 so its borderline tach. What you got there is ST depression, which is indicative of myocardium in trouble.

You won't get pinking of the skin if it's 2 am and 5 degrees outside. 2 min intervals are there for a reason and you should definitely stick to them.

Yeah, everyone has their preferences, but we got uniforms that conform to safety standards. I may work in different boots but if I get hurt and am not in work issue boots I'm out of luck for work comp and full paid sick leave.

What they said. Your enthusiasm is commendable. Don't take any of them, or even me seriously. We are all a tad jaded by what we've seen and we have all seen bystanders do stupid stuff by trying to help. But with your will and desire to be an EMT you will do more than okay if you get some...

I work in a tourist hotspot So out of season we get from nil to 5-6 a day. But then the summer comes and we get 12-13 per 12 h shift, and our station exam room gets swamped with 50-60 patients per shift. We just got statistics from HQ. Last year we had around 1200 interventions and 3500 exam...

I did that while pronouncing a patient. We were called to a hospice to pronounce a cancer patient and the husband was there. At the time I didn't know relationship between them so I asked "Mother?" I felt like an utter cretin. Still can't look that man in the eye :-(

I'm assuming it's oropharyngeal airways. Highly doubt he packs a laryngoscope with assorted trach tubes :P OP you are overprepared :) Compliments on enthusiasm but you will never ever need 80% of that stuff. Unless you are right behind a bus that drives into a tree. Then by all means be proud :P

@ThatEMTGuy Try to get your hand ond Dubin's Interpretation of ECG, it's a great resource and easy to learn from it.