realmedics-blog

[realmedics-blog]

I worry about the hate sometimes

Being a paramedic isn't hard when you're getting calls where you can see what you're doing actually helps people. Even if it just as simple as talking someone down from the brink of panic by interjecting a bit of inaccessible common sense, you know?

But it's the days and days that go by where you do nothing good. It's the valley of waiting, watching the night stretch long.

It's on the way home from days like this, maybe, where you're on the wind-torn, sleeted, and icy roads, and barely swerve to avoid hitting the car in front of you because you lost control of your vehicle somewhere between the road conditions and exhaustion of driving home at dawn. It's on days like this, maybe, that the asshole behind you in the lane you manage to escape into comes walking up to your window, because it's a red light -- your window that you can't even see through because of the snow drifts and starts telling you off for cutting him off in his utterly capable all-wheel over-compensation mobile.

It's on days like this that your hands shake because it takes every ounce of grace you have not to get out of the car and beat the man into the ground.

And you know that the feelings you have on days like this are an over-reaction, but something somewhere inside of you is eventually going to need to be let out to play.

It's on days like this I try to pray.

[realmedics-blog]

I can tell you, this dude has seen some serious shit. Like, Scorsese-level shit. And most of it is hysterical.

Working a night shift on a small indian reservation with a population of 4000 souls. In the north, indian reservations are infamous for their ambulance encounters. You really never know what to expect in a area so vast where houses are spaced acres apart. Some are well taken of, with 6 foot fences...

[realmedics-blog]

[realmedics-blog]

Quick, let's grab a gaggle of residents and tell them all about the joys of catropine.

(in case you were curious, it's like atropine, except with more cats.

Boom.

/yourmindblown)

How my classmate and I feel when we have the same hospital clinical shift: 

[realmedics-blog]

Tin foil hat? Try tin foil walls.

Just went on a DOA. No family, no neighbors who were worthwhile historians. There was evidence of hoarding and other compulsive activity in the home, but the departed had also removed all the lights in the living area and meticulously covered every inch of wall space in tin foil.

Not the first time I've seen this, and am curious if anyone in the community is familiar with what particular psychiatric diagnosis the tin foiling behavior is indicative?

[realmedics-blog]

During the Jim Crow era, people in America were told by government “If you are black, you may not work at this job or that job.”

Today, thankfully, government is no longer in the business of artificially restricting people’s economic opportunities directly on the basis of people’s skin color.  But…

Today, people in America (and in many other countries, too) are told by government “If you are an especially unproductive worker – that is, if you cannot produce, for any employer, value per hour that is at least equal to the minimum wage that we arbitrarily set – you may not work at any job.”

In what way is this latter assault against a group of people (based upon characteristics that are not their fault) acceptable and humane if the former assault is unacceptable and inhumane?

Furthermore, there’s ample evidence that increases in the legislated minimum wage in the U.S. have a disparate negative impact on the employment prospects of blacks, and especially young blacks. 

I'm sure this is an incredibly ignorant question, so please see this as a genuine desire to see my ignorance quashed, however:

The difference between the two policies seems simple: the current policy allows people to be fired if they are performing poorly at their jobs. Why is that a bad thing?

[realmedics-blog]

[realmedics-blog]

That explains why I just failed my recert. 

The answer to any question regarding treatment of cardiac arrhythmias is never "Shock them into a rhythm I know"

[realmedics-blog]

Partner: I got you IV access in the left A -- Did you fucking EJ them while you were getting the tube???

Me: EVERY FUCKING TIME, BITCH.

Partner: I'm surprised you don't do two.

Me: And here I thought you were going to call me a pussy for going with a 16 instead of a 14 gauge.

[realmedics-blog]

You know

I created this blog based off a half-cocked idea we came up with in medic basic to parody the "Real Men of Genius" ad campaign as it pertained to paramedicine.

Because guys, we do some really fucking stupid stuff. And 80% of it hilarious, granted, but that remaining 20%? That stuff that grips us cold in the heart because dear god, we didn't get in trouble for that? 

And if you, dear paramagician reading this blog right now, have yet to experience the shit-your-pants feeling I just described above (like that time you fucked up a narcotics dosage, or maybe when you had Atropine drawn up and ready to give your APE patient because the shooter now looks exactly Lasix, or wait shit it's 6-12-12. not 12-12-6, on the Adenosine? Here's hoping this dude's heart doesn't stop and stay stopped), you simply haven't been a paramedic long enough. Or maybe you're too stupid to realize you've been in that moment before, and at the time, you just thought everything was fucking gravy. Or you're a sociopath, and what's dead can't get much worse, right?

I digress, though, internet pals, because my point here is simple: know your shit.

Stop laughing off forgetting med dosages and protocols you never use, because that next job is the beta blocker overdose and oh fuck do we carry something for that? Or oh they have a known 2nd degree arrhythmia, they just under hydrated and are a bit hypovolemic, let's take them to Bumblefuck Hospital except oops, that EKG on arrival looks a little more like a complete block now that you're taking a second look doesn't it?

Or ignore me. Be happy in your half-cocked practice, and knowledge that you'll never help someone actually in need of emergency intervention. Maybe you will perpetually handle drunks in Times Square until the day you retire your fatass on a 3/4s because of that stroke you convinced the lawyers came from sitting in your truck 8 hours, not your unchecked obesity and hyperlipidemia. 

Maybe being bad at your job will never bite you in the ass.

Hell, maybe firefighters will be doing your job before your job bites you in the ass, if the Comish gets his way.

This job is still inherently hilarious for all the wrong reasons, and this blog is still mostly here to revel in those reasons, but with some of the stuff that's been happening at work recently, I felt a reality check was in order, because guys really. We can kill people.

And even if we don't get fired for that? We should be doing our level best not to add to the recently deceased -- not brushing our very serious fuck-ups off our shoulder like the mean nothing to us.

[realmedics-blog]

THIS NEVER HAPPENS. NEVER EVER. NOPE.

But, you’re a paramedic?

#ems #paramedic #paramedicine #calls

[realmedics-blog]

I can't tell you how real this is. I just can't. Endemic problem that's been brewing for years.

[from postsecret.com]

For all of my sisters and brothers out there in the service, please know that you can get help  if you need it. 

http://safecallnow.org/

[realmedics-blog]

Damn, and I thought I didn't like babies.

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But if you'd like to jump out the 49th floor window and attempt to rappel down using your new genetic mutations, don't let me be the one to pee on your dream buddy.

[realmedics-blog]

Don't make me send you to the electric chair!

[realmedics-blog]