ThatEMTGuy
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Besides O2, glucose, charcoal, nitro, and epi. What other medications should an EMT-B know. For example; Haldol, Zofran, Coreg, whats other medications should we know about.
What medications should we all know?
- Thread starter ThatEMTGuy
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Learn about whatever possible. There's no set limit for knowledge or assessment, even at the EMT level. Especially if you start in IFT, look at your patient's charts and their listed medications. Begin to correlate them with their medical history and research what they're used for and how they work. Ideally, you want to get to the point where you can look at a med list and have some pretty good guesses about their medical history. Many EMTs don't know many of these meds or don't care enough to learn, but I do think they can make you a stronger clinician.
Learn generic and trade names, learn drug classes, and learn common endings of meds (ie -lol=often beta blockers, -pril=many ACE inhibitors).
I'd say you should be at least be familiar with a variety of beta blockers, ARBs, ACE inhibitors, oral anti hyperglycemics, antibiotics, steroids, anti epileptics, inhaled beta agonists and other COPD/asthma meds, pain meds (opiate and NSAID), benzos, diuretics, SSRIs, MAOIs, and try to recognize the rare but relevant TCAs. Learn to recognize blood thinners, particularly the less common ones besides just warfarin.
This sounds like a lot, but the more you see all of them (and these really are all quite common), the more they'll begin to make sense. Good luck!
Learn generic and trade names, learn drug classes, and learn common endings of meds (ie -lol=often beta blockers, -pril=many ACE inhibitors).
I'd say you should be at least be familiar with a variety of beta blockers, ARBs, ACE inhibitors, oral anti hyperglycemics, antibiotics, steroids, anti epileptics, inhaled beta agonists and other COPD/asthma meds, pain meds (opiate and NSAID), benzos, diuretics, SSRIs, MAOIs, and try to recognize the rare but relevant TCAs. Learn to recognize blood thinners, particularly the less common ones besides just warfarin.
This sounds like a lot, but the more you see all of them (and these really are all quite common), the more they'll begin to make sense. Good luck!
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While it is important to be knowledgeable about common prehospital medications, I'd posit that having a good understanding of patient medications is even more important. Many patients are awful historians but if you have a medication list or collection of bottles, you can get a pretty good idea of what the patient has for medical history.