10 Skills Every EMT Needs (Beyond Medical Knowledge)
Every EMT remembers learning a million things in school and immediately forgetting half of them once the pager went off. That is normal. What separates solid EMTs from overwhelmed ones is not memorization. It is skill mastery. These are the essential EMT skills that show up again and again on real calls. Not the obscure […]
Trauma Triage and Tagging for EMS
Mass casualty incidents do not care how prepared you feel. One moment you are running a routine call and the next you are surrounded by more patients than resources. This is where trauma triage and tagging becomes one of the most important skills in EMS. Triage is not about being perfect. It is about doing […]
Do Palpable Pulses Correlate to Systolic Blood Pressure in Hypotensive Trauma Patients?
In Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS), we learned that a carotid, femoral, and radial pulse correlates to certain systolic blood pressure (SBP) in hypotensive trauma patients. Specifically, ATLS stated: Carotid pulse only = SBP 60 – 70 mmHg Carotid & Femoral pulse only = SBP 70 – 80 mmHg Radial pulse present = SBP >80 […]
Who Needs a Traction Splint?
Jeremy Singleton, RN CFRN CCRN CEN NREMT The human femur takes an enormous amount of force to break and is, therefore, an injury often associated with some of the higher acuity patients seen in emergency medicine. The kinetic energy necessary for such an injury, along with the close proximity of major vessels and nerves, provides […]
Time for Spinal Immobilization to Die in Trauma Patients
Background: It has been common practice in trauma to place patients in cervical collars and on long backboards (LBBs) to achieve spinal immobilization. LBBs are used to help prevent spinal movement and facilitate the extrication of patients. Cervical collars (C-Collars) are used to help prevent movement of the cervical spine and often are combined with […]
Private/For Profit EMS
Historically, smaller communities have not recognized ambulance services as being on a similar priority level as fire departments or the police. Most people did not believe EMS agencies deserved to receive public funding. That was until it became apparent that medical transportation services are just as important as other public safety systems. Before these EMS […]
Air Medical Services: The Evolution of Aircraft as Ambulances
For a long time, air medical transport has been an important aspect of emergency and critical care. In case of a medical emergency, an air ambulance company should be able to move patients to and from healthcare facilities so that they can get the medical treatment that they need. Flight crews play a large role […]
How EMS Services Including Ambulances Went from Punishment to Prestige
Before World War II, many hospitals provided emergency ambulance service in large cities. However, the war effort led to severe shortages in manpower, and it soon became difficult for EMS providers and hospitals to maintain their ambulance operations even during medical emergencies. Because of this, many city governments turned their emergency services over to the […]
Sudden Ambulance Death Syndrome
Stay and Play We’ve all had those critical patients: the ones circling the drain when we show up who bring the “pucker factor.” As EMTs and paramedics, our first reaction is to “grab and go” and get that patient to the familiar environment of our ambulance. It makes sense, right? That’s our office, all of […]
When to Transfuse: Diagnostic Tools
The ability to transfuse critically ill patients before they even reach the hospital doors is becoming a reality for more programs every day. Over the past several years the tides have shifted to favor blood in for blood out, highlighting the importance this component plays in our normal physiology. There have been many attempts at […]