Ethics of treating and transporting your own family.

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Honeybadger

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I am potentially being placed in the position of responding to my fiancee's father as a psych patient. What are the ethics involved? If he requests I tech, do I decline and force my partner to to tech? Do I refuse to have my unit run the call and request another ambulance? Which may take quite a long time. I am very familiar with his history and believe he may be calmer and more cooperative with me, and can relay much more accurate information at the hospital. But he is also not legally related to me yet, either.

This genuinely scares the feel out of me and my supervisor is not helpful in elaborating.
 
If he is going to be more calm with you and you are able to provide more information to the receiving facility why avoid it? If you feel comfortable with being the tech then go for it. If you don’t then have your partner (if able). Typically refusing a call means a delay in patient care which can land you in trouble if it’s a 911 call.
 
DesertMedic66 said:
If he is going to be more calm with you and you are able to provide more information to the receiving facility why avoid it? If you feel comfortable with being the tech then go for it. If you don’t then have your partner (if able). Typically refusing a call means a delay in patient care which can land you in trouble if it’s a 911 call.
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I was thinking that, but I was unsure if there were ethics violations, e.g. a doctor cannot treat his/her own family. I feel confident I cools handle the call, it is just another patient after all, I'd be treating him no differently than any other patient.
 
I agree with DesertMedic. You might be overthinking this. If no one in the family is objecting, and you have no reason to believe your presence would make the outcome worse, just go with the flow.
 
Bro docs treat friends and family all the time.
 
RocketMedic said:
Bro docs treat friends and family all the time.
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Exactly this. Really the only thing that is not allowed is for a doctor to write a script for a narcotic to a family member, at least according to the girlfriend’s father.
 
eh, I know plenty of doctors who will give friends and family a cursory glace, but will refer anything that requires an office visit to another doc. especially something like a risky surgery.

that all being said, there is no rule against treating your family member in EMS. Especially if you know their history, they are calmer with you, and you are comfortable doing it. Ask your supervisor if your agency has any rules against this; personally i doubt there are.

The real question you have to ask yourself is, if he gets violent, and needs to be restrained, can you do it? So if he gets out of the restraints and punches you, how will you go about dealing with him in the future?
 
I once transported my own grandma.
 
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