EMS Wisdom

Philosophical EMS Observation #1,376: Some of the most exasperating EMS calls you run are kids and old people. And invariably, the people that make you thankful you’re in EMS are kids and old people. If you don’t like them both, you’re in the wrong profession. Truth, or bullshit? Discuss amongst yourselves.

Want to start a fight in an EMS social media forum? Just ask if EMTs diagnose. Invariably, you'll get hordes of people shitting their pants over a simple word, and twisting the English language into something unrecognizable in an effort to avoid calling something what it really is. General impression. Field diagnosis. Presumptive diagnosis. Field impression. We have an entire ...

In JEMS.com, we read about Lee County, FL adopting a cool new piece of spinal immobilization equipment: With the field trial complete, the team gained the approval from the Lee County Protocol Committee in February 2013. In March 2013, the Lee County Medical Care Council unanimously approved the “XCollar and Discriminate Spinal Immobilization Guideline.” (See Figure 1.) The guideline went ...

When dealing with assault victims, perpetrators, or witnesses, assume that everyone involved is lying through their tooth teeth. Better to be pleasantly surprised that 1 in 1000 times someone tells the truth, than to be disappointed the other 999 times. Corollary: Whenever someone prefaces a statement with, “Man, I ain’t gonna lie to you…” what follows is utter fabrication, prevarication, ...