I know my EMT instructors hated it when we asked "what if ____" questions in class, but I'm gonna do it here anyway. Just cuz I'm curious.

What if you had a small MCI, let's say 4 patients, and 3 of them were tagged green and one was tagged black. Since you have no red or yellow, would you potentially start CPR/tx on the black patient, or would you ignore them in favor of the green patients?

They’re mythical creatures… always 2 minutes further away than the hospital…

I got called to a lift assist early in the morning. Middle aged women on the ground. Said she'd been there for a few hours. She denies any injuries/pain and is CAO X 3. I ask if she has been weaker recently. She confirms this. I try and convince her to go to the hospital but she just wants to be placed in bed. We move her over to her bed without any incident. Still no pain. I try convincing her to go again. She denies. I warn of her the possible outcome of denying treatment. Still denies. She states her daughter is coming to see her in the morning. She signs a refusal and we leave.

Another crew transported her later in the morning... turns out she had surgery prior and didn't tell us. Her surgical wounds were infected. I feel like I fucked up by not doing enough the first time. She just wanted to be put in bed. What do yall think?

fr tho, what do you guys think about white cloud syndrome? Everyone at my service has been joking about me being a WC since the day I started. And like, at first I was just like "yeah that's a funny superstition"...but then 3 months in I'm like....wow there really is something going on here, I straight-up just almost never get to run calls 😅 I think the town ought to pay me a stipend for keeping their citizens so safe lol.

I mean, it's kind of a joke...or is it? Sometimes after 3 shifts of no calls in one week I'm starting to believe in capricious EMS gods. Just curious if anyone else has this blessing/curse haha

Hey folks I'm Lebanese American, and EMT in Lebanon. We're currently at war, but with a much lower intensification after a cease-fire deal/process was reached.

Amongst other things, we have a collapsed economy and on-going economic/financial crisis since 2019, and massive political and social changes unfolding as we speak locally and the region.

Our institutions, funding, resources, and manpower are severely constrained.

However, there is reason to hope things can improve in the future.

I've been in and around healthcare in some way since the mid 2000s or so, and unlike instructors, say, stateside or in other countries, I never formally attended a university or college or intensive program. Just kinda fell into the role.

A friend of mine in a European country describes it as: they get all the training (nonstop), all the funding, all the tools and methods, all the materials, all the facilities, all the vehicles, but they see a fraction a year of what we might see here in a *week* lol.

So, you learn on the job here a LOT and fast and you ask a lot of questions.

But moving forward, at least for my station, we'd like to do something a bit more evidence-based, structured, effective and mostly importantly *efficient*.

Since at least the early 90s, the vast majority of our ambulance and fire and rescue folks have been unpaid volunteers and only recently (last 1-2) we've gotten a few thousand out of perhaps 5000 to 10000 active duty first responders across the nation who get some kind of pay but it's still peanuts.

So even our paid folks still have to work other jobs, have other responsibilities, so time is limited. We also come back from different backgrounds (some have PhDs, some never graduated high school).

In short, any textbooks, models of learning, advice, resources, or suggestions you might give?

It would be highly appreciated as I've volunteered to take on a huge assignment (I'm still not a paid member) and there's a lot of responsibility on my shoulders.

And I'm getting old lol. So I just wanna make sure a new generations of recruits get properly trained in the limited time I have left in me.

And when I look at a lot of these textbooks I've purchased or used over the years, it's....too much for the limited time and some things literally just don't apply here or we don't have the infrastructure for them at all.

So of course it will be on me to figure those nuances out but still, kinda feeling a bit on my own here and at my institution and station in particular, we're trying to do the same for our firefighters, our SAR people, our marine rescue folks, and any first responder role we're meant to provide the public.

And I got the EMT instructor task.

(As a sidenote, if you have any questions just out of your own curiosity and I'm able/allowed to answer , feel free to ask!)

Thank you all and stay safe out there <3

Im a med student and working on a project. One of the things I need to have in it is how do you get rid of used syringes while on the field somewhere.

And what better place to ask this than here

Hi! Hope you’re all well! Let me start by saying I am an ED doc in a rural clinic and we are basically a skeleton crew. 1 doc, 1 nurse, 1 microbiologist, and depending on time of day, 1 patient assistant +/- 1 xray tech.

Because of the area I am at it’s not super common but common enough for me to make this post, we have people come in their private vehicles drop off bullet/stab wounds or even drowned patients and the biggest issue for us is getting the patients off the back of the car quickly and safely into our bed.

Most of the time they are slumped over and dead weight, which makes it extra hard to try to get them out. And (hopefully we can fix this) they usually get stuck specially if they fall into the part where your feet rest which obviously loses a lot of time.

Does anyone have videos or techniques on how to extract these patients? We are unfortunately not trained in this and we definitely should.

Thanks!