As medical professionals, when we are assessing our patients, one of the most common questions that we ask, is “what medications are you taking?” A lot of medics think that we only need to know about prescriptions medications, but this is not true. We need to know all of the patient’s prescription medications, all of their [...]
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a diagnosis that has been around for a very long time but is becoming increasingly more common for emergency medical services personnel to encounter. Quality of care and correct care comes down to having a basic understanding of ASD. Autism spectrum disorder is a disability that causes delays in communication, social [...]
Are you pulling my leg? -femur fractures The Thomas splint was first introduced by Hugh Owen Thomas in 1875, in his book titled, Diseases of the hip, knee and ankle joints with their deformities, treated by a new and efficient method. Across the western front, the splint was adopted and by 1917, it had become standard issue [...]
As temperatures rise, heat-related emergencies become a significant concern for emergency medical service (EMS) providers. While most people associate heat-related incidents with dehydration or heatstroke, respiratory emergencies induced by heat exposure are often overlooked. I would like to shed light on the topic of heat-related respiratory emergencies, providing EMS providers with essential knowledge and strategies to [...]
No longer will you ask your patient what kind of heart surgery they had upon seeing that sternotomy scar from an incision made before they saw through the length of your sternum and then reconnect it with wires after they’re done. If you haven’t already, you will have the patient that denies any heart problems [...]
The trauma triad of death is made up of hypothermia, coagulopathy, and acidosis. And when it comes to hemorrhagic shock that will occur unless we intervene as quickly as possible. If possible, we want to interrupt the development of the triad be addressing the individual parts as quickly as possible. Hypothermia occurs in cases of [...]
The life you save may not be the patient you’re treating. A head trauma patient may not be as lucky as Phineas P Gage. If you’re not familiar with his story, briefly he had a pointed iron rod 1 ¼ inches in diameter and 3 feet 7 inches log enter under his left eye and [...]
Reminder, the scenario and questions that were asked of a group of paramedic students: You are called to the home of a 24-year-old female who is 36 weeks pregnant and in labor. You are met at the door and advised that she has had no prenatal care. You are also told that the patient has been [...]
Crew Resource Management (CRM) is a team-oriented approach for the effective use of personnel to promote the teamwork, communication, and problem-solving to patient safety. CRM originated in the commercial airline industry because there were numerous errors because of breaks in communication amongst the crew members in the 1980’s and has since been expanded into dynamic, high-stress [...]
