This week, Scott Kier is joined by David Konig, Sean Eddy, and later in the show Russell Stine.  The group tackle the resignation of Chief Kenneth Ellerbe of the Washington, DC Fire and EMS Department (DCFEMS) and share their viewpoints about what should be next for the department.  Is this a leadership issue?  A cultural one?  Find out what the group thinks this week on EMS in the New Decade! Read more from David Konig at his blog The Social Medic. Check out Sean Eddy’s blog, Medic Madness. Finally, to see more from RJ Stine, check out his website, Hybrid Medic. To download this week’s podcast, click this link!  Or just use the player below....

Jun 6, 2014

Did you know that this week is National CPR Awareness Week?  In some places, people are celebrating it the right way.  Earlier this week, Governor Quinn of the State of Illinois signed into law a bill requiring high schools to add CPR and AED training to their curriculum.  The bill was created in response to the death of Lauren Laman who died while practicing with the school’s dance team.  Lauren received no prearrival CPR, and although there was an AED nearby, no one received it or thought to use it. Obviously, no one can really know if CPR and the AED would have definitively saved Lauren’s life but at least we would have given her a fighting chance had the skill and the device been used.  The creation of this law is a great thing, and it’s about damn time that somebody somewhere finally got this one right. I remember back in the (late) 1990’s when I was in high school, our junior year health semester was dominated by first aid training.  We learned CPR, but if I remember correctly, while we received the class, we did not receive cards in our pockets.  Looking back, I guess it was better than nothing and a step in the right direction. Think about many of the cardiac arrests that we run.  Someone has to call them in, right?  Whether it is someone at home with the patient or someone in the street with the patient there is someone else there more times than not.  Now, compare that number to the actual number of people who receive pre-arrival CPR.  Emergency Medical Dispatch’s version of pre-arrival instructions are great, but there is nothing better in a situation like that than having the knowledge in your own head of what to do. With the introduction of cell phones, we have conditioned society to call in incidents and make them somebody else’s problem.  It all led to what I liked to call the “third party caller not minding their own business” job.  You know, those calls for the person sleeping on a park bench, or someone who “looks like” they might be in distress.  Occasionally, that caller will stick around...

I’ve struggled with how much of this I should post as it gets rather personal for me in a number of ways.  My final decision is that I should, and need to, lay everything on the line.  I may offend some, others might roll their eyes at some of this but this is my story, like it or not, take it or leave it. Over the last year and a half I have been asked by a number of people in my new system, “Why did you come here?”  My usual answer is “I don’t have enough time to explain it all, which is partially true.  The truth of it all is though that most of the reasons that I left Massachusetts revolve around my tipping point which took place during the first week of June in 2012.  I think it’s time that I set the record straight.  Any statute of limitations I would potentially be violating should have lapsed by now, right? In April and May of that year there was some major restructuring done to AMR’s Northeast Division.  The regional manager was let go and was replaced by a former manager at Rural Metro.  At first, it did not seem to have much impact on us, but I remember being at a training for my part time job at Six Flags and having to step out for an “emergency conference call” to announce the change.  It came as a surprise, of course, but a subdued one at that.  The next few weeks it was “business as usual” in my operation. The first week of June had been a particularly turbulent one in 2011 when I dealt with the worst natural disaster that Springfield endured during my tenure with the tornado that hit on the first, so that week already carried a lot of memories for me.  During those first few days of June of 2012, it seemed like it was just about all that we talked about. The first of June was a Friday, and that day passed rather uneventfully.  I worked the day shift.  Many of us swapped some stories, and we all went home that night feeling good about ourselves....

Jun 2, 2014

On this week’s show, Scott Kier is joined by Sean Eddy from Medic Madness, and first time podcaster the Chicago Medic Jeff Sorenson. After the recent incident where two Michigan paramedics were caught on camera allegedly smiling and “posing” while taking care of a patient, the trio discuss humor and its place in the field. What place does it have in patient care? How do we use it to deal with those more frustrating or stressful calls? How can we prepare new providers for the type of humor they are going to encounter? Do you want to find out the answer to these questions and more? Take a listen below! Read more from Sean Eddy on his blog Medic Madness. Follow Jeff Sorenson on Twitter. To download this week’s podcast, click this link!  Otherwise, use the player...