Rural vs. City 911 EMS Services

Have you ever worked for a remote or rural department or company and have also worked for a busy city department? Do you feel like you gained different skills because of the amount of time you were with your patients, whether it’s a lot of time or a little? Working for a remote or rural [...]

Protecting Ourselves from Germs!

When EMS professionals report to work, it’s no surprise that a lot of our patients are going to be sick. It’s nothing new for us, but this means that we are exposed to sick person after sick person, germ after germ. This can be physically overwhelming for us sometimes. We often work long hours, running [...]

What A Shock! – History of the Modern Pacemaker

The History of the Modern Pacemaker and Symptomatic Bradycardia The year was 1952 and Paul Zoll introduced the first transcutaneous cardiac pacemaker to treat symptomatic bradycardia. Six years later, the first successful implantation of a pacemaker was performed in Sweden on Arne Larsson by performing a thoracotomy and suturing 2 epicardial electrodes to the heart. [...]

When, Where and why to call a helicopter

It’s 3 am on a dark winding stretch of road a father, husband, son is driving home from work to rejoin his family after a long nightshift. His eyes begin to tire as his trunk slowly drifts off the road. The tones drop as you rub your eyes wishing for just a few more hours of [...]

Rockstar Cardiology, Things You Should Know

If you want to be a good paramedic you need to be able to effectively and accurately read a 12-lead. If you want to be a great paramedic you have to be able to interpret 12-leads. What does that mean, it means more than just identifying the standard ST elevated myocardial infraction (STEMI). With that in [...]

Work Affecting Home

What do you do when your family is not supportive of your EMS work schedule? We work long hours, never knowing for sure what time we will get off. We work holidays, birthdays, and many other important days and nights. We can’t just call in sick or demand to get off work on time, just because [...]

Ambulance Abuse

If you have ever worked on an ambulance, you know that ambulance abuse happens. People call for an ambulance like they’re calling for a taxi. You pull up on scene, six vehicles sitting in the driveway, an entire family standing there, and the patient already has their bags packed, and they’re ready to hop in the [...]

Pediatric Assessment and Treatment

Very few things strike as much fear in most EMS providers more than the critically ill or injured pediatric transport. Some of the forces that instill fear in most EMS providers is the lack of available appropriately sized pediatric equipment, the general lack of familiarity with what would be deemed “normal” vital sign parameters, the [...]

Narcan Overdose not what you think!

Now days, it seems like everyone has Narcan… EMS, fire, law enforcement, jail and prisons, random business owners, even the general public, everyone has Narcan.  There seems to be a shared mindset, that there are no side effects or consequences to giving Narcan.  If someone is having an opioid overdose, Narcan might help reverse the effects [...]

FTOing New EMTs and Paramedics

Have you ever started a new job, and had to go through a training evaluation phase? That is a pretty common thing in EMS. Maybe you, yourself, are a training officer for your company. Companies and departments need to be certain that you are competent as an EMT or a paramedic. They need to ensure [...]