Silly things your instructor said

[JakeEMTP]

Methemoglobinemia also causes the pt to be cyanotic, quite dramatically in some cases. If you somehow manage to miss that it is probably time to find a new job.

I see you must live in an area where everyone is white and have the very best of lighting to work in.

It also depends on the level of methemoglobin.

A good history of recent events must be taken also.

Not everything is as black and white as you make it which is why relying on more than just numbers is a must.

 

[Hunter]

It's not just about treating a symptomatic patient with seemingly normal vitals it'd also about not treating an asymptomatic with seemingly unstable vital signs

 

[Impulse]

They mostly gave the kids in class who were going fire a hard time.

 

[VFlutter]

"each month when women shed their ovaries" Say what? :unsure:

 

[heatherabel3]

Not medical related at all but one of my instructors says "Holy buckets" about 30 times each lecture.

He also just taught us the "radial pulse means 80 systolic bp".

 

[xrsm002]

Here's the problem. All three are dumb and incorrect, but at least the last two are supported by current edition textbooks.

What about the 4th?

 

[xrsm002]

Wow this thread got thrown off topic

 

[PandaBear]

One of my instructors had a song for Ob...
Went something like "head down, butt up, now find someone to drive that truck and go... And go...
Oh my god, cords hangin out. Make EMS scream and shout and go... And go..."


Good times...

 

[lightsandsirens5]

Stupid instructor tricks:

"Treat the patient not the monitor"

"A radial pulse means a pressure of at least 80"

"Always have a line before NTG"

This is all stuff I've heard from instructors in the last year.

I HATE those! Probably three of my BIGGEST hates I have acquired.

 

[Altered Mental Status]

Silly as in dumb? Or silly as in "good times?" Cause my basic instructor had a ton of "good times" gems. Imagine all of these spoken in an Emo Phillips-esque inflection:

"If [the scene becomes unnnsafe], you don't have to outrun the patient, you jusssst have to outrun your partner."

"If the patient throws up during resuscitation, that's ooookay. Just tiiip the backboard towards your partner and suction..."

"The solution to pollution is dilution!"

"DON'T pull the knife out of a stab wound. IT'S A PLUG IN A HOLE. And if, for soooome reason, the plug comes OUT of the hole, whatEVVVER you do, DON'T put the knife back INto the hole."

He was fond of saying "hypoperfusion" a lot. a lot a lot. I mean, a LOT. And he said it with a funny sort of emphasis that really drilled the "CO2 goes out, O2 goes in, blood goes round and round" concept into our heads. As in:

"Aaaand NONE of these things will ever kill your patient. An head injury won't kill your patient. A heart attack will never kill your patient. The only thing that evvver killlls the patient is...HYPOPERFUUUUUUSION!"

He had some interesting ways of pronouncing stuff. Like Pancreas was the "PIIIINEcreas!"

But my absolute favorite, by far was week one, chapter two, right after "Making A Difference" Hx of EMS. It was Ethics and providing us with a mnemonic to remember the difference between "Assault" and "Battery." It was:

"THIS is what you CALLLLED him --->[***]ault
and THIS is what you HIT him with!" --->[BAT]tery

 

[JPINFV]

Sontimeter.

 

[STXmedic]

Whether that's the correct pronunciation or not, I cringe when I hear that...

 

[traumaluv2011]

But my absolute favorite, by far was week one, chapter two, right after "Making A Difference" Hx of EMS. It was Ethics and providing us with a mnemonic to remember the difference between "Assault" and "Battery." It was:

"THIS is what you CALLLLED him --->[***]ault
and THIS is what you HIT him with!" --->[BAT]tery

That is a very good way to remember the difference. Thanks

 

[Bullets]

At this point, basically half the stuff they said in class was "silly"

I went into the EMT class wide eyed, not having any medical training past Boy Scouts. I looked at these instructors with a certain respect, most having 10+ years in EMS and accepted what they and the book said. Once i passed the test i began to question why we do the things we did. Why does everyone get 15L NRB when i have all these other settings? Why do We backboard people with no pain?

And then i found guys like Tim Noonan, Michael Morse, Justin Schorr and realized what i was taught was actually killing or not helping.

3 years later i go back to recert and there are those same instructors saying the same stuff, even though the evidence isnt there. Now they look like fools in my eyes, gone is the respect i had for the knowledge i believed they possessed. I almost got thrown out for challenging them

 

[GoNoles01]

If you drop the baby fake a seizure

 

[TheLocalMedic]

From a paramedic who claims that she is also an ACLS instructor:

"If you are more than an hour away from a cath lab, there isn't really any point in doing a 12 lead. They're just going to do another one at the hospital, and then if they need to they can just transfer the patient to a cath lab later. That's why rural companies that don't have a nearby cath lab don't need to have monitors that can do 12 leads, and it saves the company money by not having to get all that special equipment."

Say WHAT?

 

[DrankTheKoolaid]

Ouch thelocalmedic, Quite the "instructor" you had. Im in Norcalems, what part of norcal you in? I need to make sure not to have her co-instruct with me if I happen to know that person

 

[74restore]

I can't be the only one who feels the tension in the last two posts.... ^^

 

[TheLocalMedic]

Yep... shot you a message about that one, Corky. It's scary sometimes...

 

[Tigger]

If you drop the baby fake a seizure

If you drop the baby, first look around. If anyone saw, fake a seizure. If not, pick it up.