EMT’s Behaving Badly

A couple of years back, my partner and I were assaulted by a combative, intoxicated patient. Not that unusual an occurrence, really. Spend enough time in EMS, and you learn that not everyone is happy to see you arrive on a scene, and not everyone sees you as the good guys. Plenty of them will express their displeasure with fists, ...

… there's a new column on EMS1. The Low Information Voters of Healthcare Enjoy, and give us your thoughts.

I follow a few EMS forums on various social media sites, but lately I've been commenting less frequently because the signal-to-noise ratio leaves me in despair of the future of our profession. I have to wade through far too many comments from adrenaline junkies, protocol monkeys, booger-eating cretins and fervent disciples of EMS mythology to find the comments of the ...

While the IT geeks may call it Scaleable Model Architecture for CSS, Dave Statter refers to it as Social Media-Assisted Career Suicide Syndrome. And I gotta tell ya, there are  lot of EMS folks on the Internet who, if not actively trying to commit career suicide, are definitely sending out cries for help. There was Captain Greg Not So Smart ...

By way of Statter 911, we get this video classic. If you're of a libertarian bent, watching this guy trying to throw his weight around under color of authority will probably make your head explode. If you're an EMT, firefighter or medic, it should just make you sad: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kxF2PLLSyAs#! Captain Not So Smart of Miami Dade Fire Rescue proceeds to ...

My friend Too Old to Work, Too Young To Retire lays the smackdown on the younger EMS generation and their work ethic (or lack thereof). The money quote: Chivalry might not be dead, but it’s not working tonight. I ROFL'ed at that one, and I'm adding it to the many lines I've stolen from my friend over the years. At ...

… so it's only fair that I condemn the same behavior in my fellow EMT's. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyonoKjBT6k&feature=player_embedded#at=110[/youtube] Let me spell this out real clearly for you, young lady: You have no expectation of privacy on a public street. Shut up, do your job, and try to project a professional image of your agency to the nice cameraman. At best, this incident ...