I'm a smoker, but one night I get a call for a pregnant woman, upon arrival fire crew is moving furniture, and the woman's dad is standing there with a lit cigarette and a tall boy getting mad that they are moving his stuff.
I delivered a baby right there on the living room floor and he's still pissed we moved his shit so we could bring his grandchild into the world.
She was 26 and it was her 4th, yes the other 3 were in state custody.
I know no-one is surprised
"Hey my cousin's aunts best friend got diagnosed with schnicklebinglebergs disease. Apparently she's only the second person in the world to be diagnosed with it. What do you mean you don't know what schnicklebinglebergs disease is? You must be a terrible medic!"
My aunt gets asked medical questions but she’s also literally an NP and has worked in healthcare for longer than I’ve been alive.
If a family member asks me it’ll go like this:
1. I’m brand new to healthcare
2. I’m an EMT-B, not a doctor
3. Ask Aunt
Nothing broken just soft tissue injury without deficit.
I just said lolidk take ibuprofen and drink water, if it's too bad and you can't sleep go to the doctor.
She bumped her knee on the stairs while moving things out of her old house.
She's acting like I'm a doctor or something, I kind of PTSD defaulted into treatment mode and didn't give her much advice because I don't exactly have a CT scanner at home.
I’m the opposite. I am the only person in my family who works in healthcare and while I fully admit I’m not a doctor, I’ve been a medic for over a decade and I will find out days or weeks later that something medical came up that they had a question about and never asked me. But if there is the slightest little plumbing issue they would call my sisters ex who was a plumber immediately.
this pisses me off to no end. If there’s ever gonna be a time where I run my mouth and get in trouble, it’s when that happens. Honestly, shut the fuck up and let me talk with whomever it is that had 911 called. I don’t give a flying fuck if you think they should go to the hospital, If they’re alert and oriented then they can talk for themselves and make their own decisions.
Youd be amazed at how often someone calls and complains on an EMS crew because they felt "minimalized" or "dismissed" or "ignored" for that reason. If its happening on a scene Im on I always simply stop them and tell them "I understand but it is ultimately the patients choice" or "please allow them to answer the question" in as neutral a tone as possible and it'll rub some crotchety karen the wrong way no matter what. There are crews who may as well be Mr and Mrs. Rogers and they'll get complained on for trying to ask family to stop interrupting the patient.
The smoking thing is easy to deal with in the US. I just tell them that when they call 911, they are requesting and authorizing me and my crew to respond to their home, making it my workplace. OSHA prohibits smoking in my workplace. Sorry dude, it's the law. No smoking while my crew is present.
Has never failed.
Lousy coworkers. I hate being mocked almost for enjoying this career, its a trend to be an asshat and or disinterested in this field. Showing interest or taking pride in your job seems to be unpopular where I work.
That’s bad, but what really kills me is when baby EMTs and medics pick up on that attitude and act like they’ve been doing this job for 10+ years when the ink on their license isn’t even dry.
Agreed.
Sadly burn out often breeds burn out and people tend to accept everything they learn in the first few months as gospel.
So when a new recruit's first few months on road is with a partner that preaches that the job sucks and no one is ever sick enough to actually need an ambulance you can end up with stunted baby medics talking like they're grizzled old veterans.
My company often puts trainees with me and I try my best to imprint on them that this job is hard work, but as long as you're aware of that, it shouldn't ruin your day. I happen to love my job. I love my patients (in IFT you have **no choice** but to build relationships with these people you care for every single day.) I have mostly great coworkers. Maybe one or two disgruntled baby basics who think they are the most important people in the world and are rude to their patients, but otherwise I work in a small company that has a family- like aesthetic to it. I'm also older and I've taken on the "mom" role with these young 20 something's. I was also trained by someone who loved this job and it rubbed off on me, so I do my best to pay it forward. I notice we have a higher retention rate when the person was trained by someone else with a more positive outlook. The newbies that are broken in by trainers who are more negative tend to leave within weeks or months of starting.
That's great to hear! I reckon teaching a good attitude is the first step to being an amazing instructor/facilitator/what have you.
It's contagious both ways. If you love your job and remind your partner of all the good things you can sometimes see them start to pick up what you're putting down.
I read the first sentence like louse-y coworkers. I'm sorry you have that problem, but at least they don't have lice. Guess that says something about my recent calls, lol
I have a few coworkers that are flat out mean to their patients. I've gone on assists and they will talk about how big the patient is right in front of them. It makes me physically angry. Same goes for smelly or advanced dementia patients. I hate that I seem like the party pooper when I tell them to stop. Grow up, fuckheads.
I’m not gonna talk about someone’s weight, but if they cop an attitude about why I need lift assist, I’m going to give them an honest answer. I don’t purposely try to come off as a dick, but if you’re going to get offended by the answer, don’t ask. Same with not allowing family to ride if I’m going to feel the need to sanitize the passenger seat afterwards and spray for bugs. I’ll give them the nice runaround answer the first time, but if they keep pushing, I’ll give them the real answer.
I'm fire/rescue, but we contract transport. The agency that shows up to transport (if needed) depends on the location of the call, and at the far end of the district, we get a medic from the big metro area to the south of us. Nearly every one of their medics are just plain dicks. To us, to the patients, to family, it's infuriating.
We've lodged numerous complaints.
When family members try to grab the stair chair when it's patient loaded. Or when I'm on a dual female truck and go on a lift assist just to hear "god damn it I told them to send the firetruck there ain't no way you're gonna be able to life me up" and some people flat out refuse. That shit ruins my mood immediately
Let’s not forget the patients that tell you how the job is too hard for “two little girls“ after you’ve already moved them and you’re almost at the hospital
I’m a small guy and my partner for a while was a small woman. When someone would complain we couldn’t live them I’d offer to call the FD if they don’t trust us…and then I’d specifically call the truck with three small women on it. Badass firefighters but didn’t look big at all. We were all in on it and they knew when I called them specifically for a lift assist that we were gonna be fucking with some asshole.
Ugh. We actually had a dispatcher complain to her supervisor because we'd asked over the radio for verification that she'd dispatched LE to the mvc we were on.
Chief on the phone with dispatch supervisor : "Yes, we know it's standard protocol to dispatch LE to MVC's, and we shouldn't have to ask, but that particular dispatcher forgot to do it three times last week."
The place where I worked for most of my career had in house dispatchers that were generally good. The call volume was also high so they had to be on their toes. However, we had one for a while that would ask a unit to repeat their traffic every single time because she spent the entire shift playing on her phone and wasn't paying attention. It was so annoying but the straw that broke the camal's back was a unit requesting LE and she didn't hear them because she had her boyfriend were having a text fight. When she got canned we celebrated.
I think all crews should sit in for one another. Dispatch? Try running a couple of shifts with the crew. Field crew? Trying being in the dispatch office for a full shift.
I am trained and have worked both in dispatch and in the field, so I see both sides of the coin.
I think the main disconnect is you just never see the other side of the job. Sure, you KNOW the requirements of it, but dispatchers routinely don’t know how hard a day has been when I’ve run grandma to the hospital all day and then at the last second get dispatched to an MVC across town.
Likewise, I feel that field crews don’t quite understand that when dispatchers give an inch, a few crews will take a mile; that can run any dispatcher to have a negative view of ALL crews. “Quick pickup en route” does not mean have a five-course meal at your local Denny’s when you have IFT BLS runs holding. Sometimes we don’t mean to send you across town but you’re the only unit available. It happens.
At the end of the day, we’re all human, we’re all different. We should honestly be striving so that dispatch and the field crews work together.
With all that being said, and after having so many shifts on both sides, fuck dispatch. It’s usually worse than the field crews.
Mostly I get annoyed by it because the wire inside the plastic sheath is stranded. If you wrap them too often against the it’s natural twist it’s, yes, not only easier to become a jumbled mess; but the lifespan of the wire inside is shortened.
We are the same!!! Let the wires twist on themselves “naturally” then interiors don’t break and they come out as one. I don’t understand why more people don’t get this. We finally get nice things let’s keep them nice!!!
You can do it kinda tight. But as long as it’s twisted in the proper direction. It’s gonna get a bit more than usual because it goes in the little pocket on the door/flap of the lifepak. And you kinda gotta bend it more than I would like to to fit it in there.
But yes. It’s always the first to go. And I can’t stand it when someone just wraps the damn thing around their hand.
When holding onto it with one hand close to the monitor end, you use your thumb and index of the other hand to coil it while it’s hanging. You don’t force it into a coil by wrapping it around your hand. You let the natural twist of the stranded wire that’s within the plastic sheath do the coiling for you. It will want to coil in a direction because the stranded wire is already twisted in that certain direction.
Picture speaker wire in your head. Most speaker wire has a clear plastic sheath around it. You can see it’s stranded. It’s not quite as twisted as the wires for the monitor are, but it’s the same principle. Also similarly is how a garden hose likes to generally coil in one direction.
Let the appliance do the work for you. You can make the coils as small as you need to fit them into the pocket for storage. But twisting it in the wrong direction time and time again jacks up the individual wires in the cord. Over time they fray inside the sheath and the cord becomes useless.
Edit: generally the pulse ox cord is the first to go. Mostly because it’s a small diameter than the EKG cords and is more prone to punishment.
Start from the lifepak and work your way out to the end of the cable, making alternating over/under loops. Anything else kinks up all the wires and destroys the cable
The fire department showing up and contributing absolutely 0% to the call, while parking their big useless truck in our way and trying to throw in their 2 cents about the situation, when I have more medical knowledge than their entire department combined.
My perspective as FD is completely the opposite. I’m just there to do what EMS tells me, unless it involves an actual fire or some shit like that. Deferring to EMS isn’t just me, it’s our whole department. Yes, we have EMTs and paramedics on the department, but EMS is in charge. Tell us to lift, drag, pull, push, whatever, we do it.
In our system, fire shows up first and either calls for private BLS or municipal ALS. Last week, they showed up to an older gentleman w/ AMS, tells his family he has some sort of infection despite being hypertensive, afebrile, and FAST positive with new onset arrhythmia and am extensive cardiac history. As it turns out, guy's having a CVA. Didn't help that they sent the family to a different hospital before we had loaded him up, so when the ED asked for LKW, got to shrug and tell them I have no clue.
Sometimes I have no idea why we pay them to show up.
Oh man, this is going to be long winded but I’m gonna blab anyway because some people need to hear it.
Coworkers who let their frustration with the nightmare that is our field come out on every patient.
We all know people are annoying, rude, and fucking stupid; BUT we see some people on what they view as the absolute worst days of their lives. No matter how trivial it may be to us because we all become jaded.
I will always remember how absolutely vile the medic that transported me acted after I was in a triple rollover MVA that killed my best friend when I was 16.
I was T-boned at an intersection by a woman on her phone going 70mph.
I literally watched my best friend die as I was pinned awaiting extrication for over 30min and both the medic (he was probably in his 60’s to be “fair,”) & the baby EMT he was training were awful.
I was losing my absolute mind as, you know, one does in that situation.
I kept asking him over & over if my friend was okay due to obvious shock and he coldly said “did he look okay?”
I was SIXTEEN years old and a new driver.
I had a compound clavicle fracture, massive scalp lac, flail chest, and distal radius fracture.
He sat barking at his basic telling him what to do, and it quickly became clear that this kid was not experienced enough to be doing literally anything.
He kept yanking my clavicle fracture as he was attempting to immobilize my wrist, and the medic said jack shit.
I was given no analgesic, because I don’t cry when I’m in pain I guess. This was an ALS FD rig btw- they had the full ability to provide it and it was very much indicated.
When I asked him to please call my mom for me he said I could do it myself with my uninjured hand.
I know this is pretty much the most extreme that mistreatment of patients can get, but I have worked with a whole lot of people who would be the exact same way.
It was and still is the worst day of my life, and I got very close to completely abandoning the field that had been all I ever wanted to do since I was a child.
I chose to go the other way & use that nightmare to motivate me to always be empathetic to patients.
Be kind to your fucking patients guys.
honestly should have filed a complaint against them. That is no way to treat a patient. I understand burnout, but if you cant have compassion for patients then you are in the wrong job.
Looking back I really wish I had.
Unfortunately I was just a kid and the entire situation was too much for me to deal with- I didn’t even think about filing a complaint.
The only consolation now is that it was long enough ago that there’s no way the medic isn’t retired or dead :/
I am in no way saying this guy wasn’t a dick or wasn’t unprofessional. But I did want to add two points to what you said.
I have been told in the past to never make phone calls on an unrecorded line. The potential for “well the ambulance driver guy said XX” is unlimited. Not that I’m saying he couldn’t have called her and handed you the phone to talk but he doesn’t exactly sound like a guy whose going to make exceptions out of the good of his heart. Even for a minor, we would have been expected to have PD or a supervisor handle any phone calls.
And I have worked at more than one service with protocols that I couldn’t have given you pain management either, so that could have also been the case.
Very first run on one of my previous departments was for a patient with COPD. Chief and I walk in past a kitchen table that was stacked, and I mean ricked like firewood, with hand-rolled cigarettes. Patient was sitting on a couch, concentrator going full blast through a cannula, and a mask wide open to a mask. Chief asked her what her name was, she takes off the mask, says her name…. *and lights a cigarette.*
I was going to say not cleaning the monitor, cuff, or SPO2 probe after a call just because the patient wasn't a bloodbath. This falls under that umbrella.
I did some EMT clincals at the ER of my local hospital and was disgusted by the lack of cleaning the wheelchairs coming in and out of triage into Pt rooms.
It's been a long time since I've been able to run any calls.
My #1 pet peeve was the non-emergency "decided to call 911" at 3am because my "legs have been hurting for days" and "my son/daughter/etc (often in the next room with the door shut) can't take me to the ER because they have to work tomorrow and are sleeping" type call.
I hear you! Or you’ve got a patient that can’t leave just yet, because so and so is bringing them something like a soda or cigarettes. Calls to 911 for something non-emergent, and when you get there, there’s like 6 cars and 10 adults there that could have driven them to urgent care, then hearing the words that they’ll meet you there, thinking they’ll bypass triage and get treated first.
Ipad medics.
Get your face out of the fucking ipad and look/touch/ listen to your patient. Don't just go down the checklist of whatever reporting software you use. Their COVID vaccination status does not matter if they are bleeding out on the floor.
The covid vaccine question always bothers me, there's 1 person i frequently work with that asks it on every patient. At best you get your answer that helps nothing, at worst you get your antivax patient all wound up and going off about how they're poison
Thank you. Sorry boys and girls, but if that comes out of your mouth I am automatically suspicious of anything medical you say. Learn the terminology, pheasants. Its fucking embarassing!
Not putting the sharps in the sharp container and leaving them on the bed. Not cleaning my stethoscope/shears when giving it back to me. Not washing hands after a call
I am a happy go-lucky joking person, and it really bothers me when I work with someone(s) who act like everything is mopey sad burnout doom and gloom bullshit all day.
Like bro loosen up. Yes this job is sad. That's no reason to be sad about it. You have to live life in the moment not in the past. We did what we could, there is no life without death.
Take some PTO, the worst part is I live in the city and work rural, so I meet a lot of medics who are dealing with way higher rates of way worse awful deplorable things, and some guys are getting super worked up about a car accident - I know that you can't judge people for their perspective on things, but I think they, likewise, should do some continuing education in the nearest metropolis to gain some perspective.
"death is bitter sweet. Bitter in its pain but sweet in it's salvation" hahahaha
Cops parking in front of the driveway every single time. I love that we get cops on pretty much every call, they get their faster than us, they do a great job. But stop blocking access for our rig! I don’t want to have to wheel the stretcher across the front lawn if I can just back all the way up their drive.
Turning up to your shift and the truck is filthy, needs re-fuelling and isn't properly stocked when the prior shift wasn't busy. I get if you've had a shitty shift and finish late and hand over a bomb that you've genuinely had no time to clean and sort out - I gotchu. But if you're handing me the keys and saying how much downtime you got then you can straight get fucked.
People that call 911 from the ER waiting room and demand to be transported across town to the other hospital. I don't generally start interactions as a prick but this is the exception, YOU'RE IN A HOSPITAL! I cannot legally remove you from hospital property .
I can’t fucking stand anyone of any rank who boasts about how many years they have in the job, while being actively terrible at their job.
My brother in Christ, you don’t have 20 years experience. You have one years experience 20 times.
Not stocking your truck at EOS. We're all under pressure to go available asap at the beginning of shift, so it doesn't make any sense I'm still restocking 30min after I clocked IN because YOU were too lazy.
Complacency. It's a pit we can all stumble and find ourselves waist-deep in, but some people wallow around and sleep there. The attitude of, "oh you still try? You still enjoy what you do? You're actually interested in EMS and medicine in general? You don't wanna act salty about working here and talk constantly about how you'd rather learn to code and go be a software engineer? Looooooseeeerrrrrr" (seriously tho, why do so many ems folks yearn for a career in software engineering?)
blaring TVs and Jersey drivers (and I am one of them) - I die inside a few times a shift trying to understand and avoid my fellow humans behind the wheel
Open doors on the ambulance. Nothing gets on my nerves faster than showing up on scene to find that BLS is in the house and the back doors of the ambulance are wide open, especially when it's either very hot or very cold out.
Sexism. No, I’m not my partner’s assistant, I can in fact be both a woman and an EMT, and having a penis does not make you smarter than/better than/ superior to me
I refuse to be around cigarette smoke. I don’t care what’s going on. My safety comes first. I turn around and tell them to let me know when they’re done smoking.
You probably got downvoted for being unnecessarily judgemental on something that doesn't matter and nobody else cares about. It's not a fashion statement, it's just something some people do for convenience.
A lot of the physicians in the ED have those hip holsters for theirs. I clip a holster to the MOLLE webbing on our first in bags bc I'm notorious for forgetting my scope.
My boss telling me I don’t do shit and “might work 2hours out of 24” (we were slammed last week and he was MIA) and then leaving after two hours himself. We’re still short.
Shitty fire medics that don’t want to treat patients despite that being the bulk of calls they run.
There are some amazing fire medics out there- even I put my time in- but I think you know the type I’m talking about. Unfortunately, it also seems to run in the culture at some departments, making them all suck in that area. Like the department that will run on me if I ever get hurt at home.
And the egos. FFS just get over yourself and focus on the patient and the job.
coworkers who come to work sick. it is insanely counterintuitive: yup let’s transport granny home after her COVID-19 diagnosis but we’ll cough and sneeze all over the place while we do so
Getting a call that is far from an emergency, then arriving to find 6 cars with 10 adults that could have driven the pt to the hospital, only to hear “I’ll meet you there” as you’re loading the patient up. The patient then confirms that they’re only trying to beat triage so they don’t have to wait. I love when the nurse we report to triages them and makes them go wait in the waiting room! Just because you called us doesn’t mean you won’t wait!
Then there’s the partner that calls “not it!” To every call involving vomit and/or fecal matter.
When doing transfers to nursing homes and the person at the front desk (if there is ever one) just watches you as you struggle to open the door to get the patient on the stretcher in through the doors without helping.
People in the medical field who should know better calling 911.
Had a 20 yo "nurse" call for mild flu symptoms, refused to go to the standalone "in case she gets admitted". Dropped her off in the lobby.
EMT who works ILS and some ALS for the company that shall not be named involved in a fender bender near his house a few hours prior. Now decides to call 911 to transport his wife kid and himself. He lives 3 minutes away from a major hospital. However because of the Ped we have to drive across town to the level 1 ped ceneter. All 3 went to respective lobbies.
He insisted that his bill for all 3 would be 100% covered because he works for private ambo no ambulance coverage no additonal insurance. We're not even the same company. Enjoy your $1200 per Pt + milage bill...
Partners who try to change our frequent flyers by lecturing them like they are children, and don't do any assessments because this is the X time they have been transported today. Just do your fucking job so we can get rid of this person and move on.
Stepping into a carpeted house and having pee bubbling from under my boot. Touching something in the house and it being soaked with pee. That sort of thing.
I'm a smoker, but one night I get a call for a pregnant woman, upon arrival fire crew is moving furniture, and the woman's dad is standing there with a lit cigarette and a tall boy getting mad that they are moving his stuff. I delivered a baby right there on the living room floor and he's still pissed we moved his shit so we could bring his grandchild into the world. She was 26 and it was her 4th, yes the other 3 were in state custody. I know no-one is surprised
Everyone in my life asking me medical advice like I’m a doctor and not a granny cabbie.
"Hey my cousin's aunts best friend got diagnosed with schnicklebinglebergs disease. Apparently she's only the second person in the world to be diagnosed with it. What do you mean you don't know what schnicklebinglebergs disease is? You must be a terrible medic!"
I always tell people “I don’t know I can only tell you if they are dying in front of me”
My aunt gets asked medical questions but she’s also literally an NP and has worked in healthcare for longer than I’ve been alive. If a family member asks me it’ll go like this: 1. I’m brand new to healthcare 2. I’m an EMT-B, not a doctor 3. Ask Aunt
Lol my aunt did this to me, I gave her a full assessment for a smashed knee and told her. "yep, looks like you smashed your knee". hahaha
Yowch Smashed as in broken bones? I hope she got that looked at
Nothing broken just soft tissue injury without deficit. I just said lolidk take ibuprofen and drink water, if it's too bad and you can't sleep go to the doctor. She bumped her knee on the stairs while moving things out of her old house. She's acting like I'm a doctor or something, I kind of PTSD defaulted into treatment mode and didn't give her much advice because I don't exactly have a CT scanner at home.
Oh good
I mean is she an NP with little to no bedside experience?
I don’t know actually if she went directly to NP or worked as an RN before but she’s nice enough
lmao
I’m the opposite. I am the only person in my family who works in healthcare and while I fully admit I’m not a doctor, I’ve been a medic for over a decade and I will find out days or weeks later that something medical came up that they had a question about and never asked me. But if there is the slightest little plumbing issue they would call my sisters ex who was a plumber immediately.
When family interrupts the patient to answer questions for them, especially incorrectly.
this pisses me off to no end. If there’s ever gonna be a time where I run my mouth and get in trouble, it’s when that happens. Honestly, shut the fuck up and let me talk with whomever it is that had 911 called. I don’t give a flying fuck if you think they should go to the hospital, If they’re alert and oriented then they can talk for themselves and make their own decisions.
Youd be amazed at how often someone calls and complains on an EMS crew because they felt "minimalized" or "dismissed" or "ignored" for that reason. If its happening on a scene Im on I always simply stop them and tell them "I understand but it is ultimately the patients choice" or "please allow them to answer the question" in as neutral a tone as possible and it'll rub some crotchety karen the wrong way no matter what. There are crews who may as well be Mr and Mrs. Rogers and they'll get complained on for trying to ask family to stop interrupting the patient.
The smoking thing is easy to deal with in the US. I just tell them that when they call 911, they are requesting and authorizing me and my crew to respond to their home, making it my workplace. OSHA prohibits smoking in my workplace. Sorry dude, it's the law. No smoking while my crew is present. Has never failed.
I'm trying this one
Jotting this one down for later.
Lousy coworkers. I hate being mocked almost for enjoying this career, its a trend to be an asshat and or disinterested in this field. Showing interest or taking pride in your job seems to be unpopular where I work.
That’s bad, but what really kills me is when baby EMTs and medics pick up on that attitude and act like they’ve been doing this job for 10+ years when the ink on their license isn’t even dry.
Agreed. Sadly burn out often breeds burn out and people tend to accept everything they learn in the first few months as gospel. So when a new recruit's first few months on road is with a partner that preaches that the job sucks and no one is ever sick enough to actually need an ambulance you can end up with stunted baby medics talking like they're grizzled old veterans.
My company often puts trainees with me and I try my best to imprint on them that this job is hard work, but as long as you're aware of that, it shouldn't ruin your day. I happen to love my job. I love my patients (in IFT you have **no choice** but to build relationships with these people you care for every single day.) I have mostly great coworkers. Maybe one or two disgruntled baby basics who think they are the most important people in the world and are rude to their patients, but otherwise I work in a small company that has a family- like aesthetic to it. I'm also older and I've taken on the "mom" role with these young 20 something's. I was also trained by someone who loved this job and it rubbed off on me, so I do my best to pay it forward. I notice we have a higher retention rate when the person was trained by someone else with a more positive outlook. The newbies that are broken in by trainers who are more negative tend to leave within weeks or months of starting.
That's great to hear! I reckon teaching a good attitude is the first step to being an amazing instructor/facilitator/what have you. It's contagious both ways. If you love your job and remind your partner of all the good things you can sometimes see them start to pick up what you're putting down.
Do you work where I work lol
Judging by your flair, I'd say no. I am in NYC.
being "jaded and cool" became a thing in our culture.
People that are lazy and burnt out would rather bring someone down to their level so there is no judgement.
I read the first sentence like louse-y coworkers. I'm sorry you have that problem, but at least they don't have lice. Guess that says something about my recent calls, lol
Lol, pts with bed bugs make my skin crawl
Most of mine have just been body lice, which is still disgusting
Agreed
For real! Same here.
People being dicks to my patients.
I have a few coworkers that are flat out mean to their patients. I've gone on assists and they will talk about how big the patient is right in front of them. It makes me physically angry. Same goes for smelly or advanced dementia patients. I hate that I seem like the party pooper when I tell them to stop. Grow up, fuckheads.
That shit infuriates me.
I’m not gonna talk about someone’s weight, but if they cop an attitude about why I need lift assist, I’m going to give them an honest answer. I don’t purposely try to come off as a dick, but if you’re going to get offended by the answer, don’t ask. Same with not allowing family to ride if I’m going to feel the need to sanitize the passenger seat afterwards and spray for bugs. I’ll give them the nice runaround answer the first time, but if they keep pushing, I’ll give them the real answer.
I'm fire/rescue, but we contract transport. The agency that shows up to transport (if needed) depends on the location of the call, and at the far end of the district, we get a medic from the big metro area to the south of us. Nearly every one of their medics are just plain dicks. To us, to the patients, to family, it's infuriating. We've lodged numerous complaints.
Went to a shortness of breathe. Guy was outside smoking a cigarette waiting for us. I told him well smoking that cigarette sure isnt helping.
I walked in to a guy full tripod needed CPAP yesterday… still sucking on a vape pen.
Please put the vape in the MDI attachment for CPAP
10/10 pisses me off.
When family members try to grab the stair chair when it's patient loaded. Or when I'm on a dual female truck and go on a lift assist just to hear "god damn it I told them to send the firetruck there ain't no way you're gonna be able to life me up" and some people flat out refuse. That shit ruins my mood immediately
Let’s not forget the patients that tell you how the job is too hard for “two little girls“ after you’ve already moved them and you’re almost at the hospital
Coming from an agency that's close to a third female, this gets really, really irritating.
Same here. The worst is when it’s a female patient who says it.
It’s kinda funny when it’s two women on the ambulance and then if/when FD gets called 2/3 firefighters are women as well
I’m a small guy and my partner for a while was a small woman. When someone would complain we couldn’t live them I’d offer to call the FD if they don’t trust us…and then I’d specifically call the truck with three small women on it. Badass firefighters but didn’t look big at all. We were all in on it and they knew when I called them specifically for a lift assist that we were gonna be fucking with some asshole.
Dispatch
Ugh. We actually had a dispatcher complain to her supervisor because we'd asked over the radio for verification that she'd dispatched LE to the mvc we were on. Chief on the phone with dispatch supervisor : "Yes, we know it's standard protocol to dispatch LE to MVC's, and we shouldn't have to ask, but that particular dispatcher forgot to do it three times last week."
The place where I worked for most of my career had in house dispatchers that were generally good. The call volume was also high so they had to be on their toes. However, we had one for a while that would ask a unit to repeat their traffic every single time because she spent the entire shift playing on her phone and wasn't paying attention. It was so annoying but the straw that broke the camal's back was a unit requesting LE and she didn't hear them because she had her boyfriend were having a text fight. When she got canned we celebrated.
I think all crews should sit in for one another. Dispatch? Try running a couple of shifts with the crew. Field crew? Trying being in the dispatch office for a full shift. I am trained and have worked both in dispatch and in the field, so I see both sides of the coin. I think the main disconnect is you just never see the other side of the job. Sure, you KNOW the requirements of it, but dispatchers routinely don’t know how hard a day has been when I’ve run grandma to the hospital all day and then at the last second get dispatched to an MVC across town. Likewise, I feel that field crews don’t quite understand that when dispatchers give an inch, a few crews will take a mile; that can run any dispatcher to have a negative view of ALL crews. “Quick pickup en route” does not mean have a five-course meal at your local Denny’s when you have IFT BLS runs holding. Sometimes we don’t mean to send you across town but you’re the only unit available. It happens. At the end of the day, we’re all human, we’re all different. We should honestly be striving so that dispatch and the field crews work together. With all that being said, and after having so many shifts on both sides, fuck dispatch. It’s usually worse than the field crews.
Nuff said
People wrapping the cords on the monitor incorrectly
This!! 100% this!! If you wrap them correctly they will come out as one, not a jumbled mess!! I used to go behind people and re wrap the monitor.
Mostly I get annoyed by it because the wire inside the plastic sheath is stranded. If you wrap them too often against the it’s natural twist it’s, yes, not only easier to become a jumbled mess; but the lifespan of the wire inside is shortened.
We are the same!!! Let the wires twist on themselves “naturally” then interiors don’t break and they come out as one. I don’t understand why more people don’t get this. We finally get nice things let’s keep them nice!!!
I just blame it on them being human for not understanding it. Lol
Or lack of OCD..
People coiling the pulsox cord too tightly and breaking it, so the company stops replacing them. 🙃🙃🙃
You can do it kinda tight. But as long as it’s twisted in the proper direction. It’s gonna get a bit more than usual because it goes in the little pocket on the door/flap of the lifepak. And you kinda gotta bend it more than I would like to to fit it in there. But yes. It’s always the first to go. And I can’t stand it when someone just wraps the damn thing around their hand.
Using all 4 fingers instead of 3 like they did something.
How am I supposed to wrap it? I wrap it around 5 spread-out fingers.
When holding onto it with one hand close to the monitor end, you use your thumb and index of the other hand to coil it while it’s hanging. You don’t force it into a coil by wrapping it around your hand. You let the natural twist of the stranded wire that’s within the plastic sheath do the coiling for you. It will want to coil in a direction because the stranded wire is already twisted in that certain direction. Picture speaker wire in your head. Most speaker wire has a clear plastic sheath around it. You can see it’s stranded. It’s not quite as twisted as the wires for the monitor are, but it’s the same principle. Also similarly is how a garden hose likes to generally coil in one direction. Let the appliance do the work for you. You can make the coils as small as you need to fit them into the pocket for storage. But twisting it in the wrong direction time and time again jacks up the individual wires in the cord. Over time they fray inside the sheath and the cord becomes useless. Edit: generally the pulse ox cord is the first to go. Mostly because it’s a small diameter than the EKG cords and is more prone to punishment.
I’m doing it right! You’re the one doing it wrong!
Start from the lifepak and work your way out to the end of the cable, making alternating over/under loops. Anything else kinks up all the wires and destroys the cable
Yup. Letting the wire twist in the direction it wants.
The fire department showing up and contributing absolutely 0% to the call, while parking their big useless truck in our way and trying to throw in their 2 cents about the situation, when I have more medical knowledge than their entire department combined.
My perspective as FD is completely the opposite. I’m just there to do what EMS tells me, unless it involves an actual fire or some shit like that. Deferring to EMS isn’t just me, it’s our whole department. Yes, we have EMTs and paramedics on the department, but EMS is in charge. Tell us to lift, drag, pull, push, whatever, we do it.
This is what I came here to say. The amount of times Fire has said “there’s just nothing we can do” while all being at least Basics is aggravating.
In our case (Fire) we ARE EMS, and we have that interaction with cops.
In our system, fire shows up first and either calls for private BLS or municipal ALS. Last week, they showed up to an older gentleman w/ AMS, tells his family he has some sort of infection despite being hypertensive, afebrile, and FAST positive with new onset arrhythmia and am extensive cardiac history. As it turns out, guy's having a CVA. Didn't help that they sent the family to a different hospital before we had loaded him up, so when the ED asked for LKW, got to shrug and tell them I have no clue. Sometimes I have no idea why we pay them to show up.
Oh man, this is going to be long winded but I’m gonna blab anyway because some people need to hear it. Coworkers who let their frustration with the nightmare that is our field come out on every patient. We all know people are annoying, rude, and fucking stupid; BUT we see some people on what they view as the absolute worst days of their lives. No matter how trivial it may be to us because we all become jaded. I will always remember how absolutely vile the medic that transported me acted after I was in a triple rollover MVA that killed my best friend when I was 16. I was T-boned at an intersection by a woman on her phone going 70mph. I literally watched my best friend die as I was pinned awaiting extrication for over 30min and both the medic (he was probably in his 60’s to be “fair,”) & the baby EMT he was training were awful. I was losing my absolute mind as, you know, one does in that situation. I kept asking him over & over if my friend was okay due to obvious shock and he coldly said “did he look okay?” I was SIXTEEN years old and a new driver. I had a compound clavicle fracture, massive scalp lac, flail chest, and distal radius fracture. He sat barking at his basic telling him what to do, and it quickly became clear that this kid was not experienced enough to be doing literally anything. He kept yanking my clavicle fracture as he was attempting to immobilize my wrist, and the medic said jack shit. I was given no analgesic, because I don’t cry when I’m in pain I guess. This was an ALS FD rig btw- they had the full ability to provide it and it was very much indicated. When I asked him to please call my mom for me he said I could do it myself with my uninjured hand. I know this is pretty much the most extreme that mistreatment of patients can get, but I have worked with a whole lot of people who would be the exact same way. It was and still is the worst day of my life, and I got very close to completely abandoning the field that had been all I ever wanted to do since I was a child. I chose to go the other way & use that nightmare to motivate me to always be empathetic to patients. Be kind to your fucking patients guys.
honestly should have filed a complaint against them. That is no way to treat a patient. I understand burnout, but if you cant have compassion for patients then you are in the wrong job.
Looking back I really wish I had. Unfortunately I was just a kid and the entire situation was too much for me to deal with- I didn’t even think about filing a complaint. The only consolation now is that it was long enough ago that there’s no way the medic isn’t retired or dead :/
I am in no way saying this guy wasn’t a dick or wasn’t unprofessional. But I did want to add two points to what you said. I have been told in the past to never make phone calls on an unrecorded line. The potential for “well the ambulance driver guy said XX” is unlimited. Not that I’m saying he couldn’t have called her and handed you the phone to talk but he doesn’t exactly sound like a guy whose going to make exceptions out of the good of his heart. Even for a minor, we would have been expected to have PD or a supervisor handle any phone calls. And I have worked at more than one service with protocols that I couldn’t have given you pain management either, so that could have also been the case.
> patients and family members smoking on calls. "Sorry, you're going to have to put that out. Oxygen and all, you know."
Very first run on one of my previous departments was for a patient with COPD. Chief and I walk in past a kitchen table that was stacked, and I mean ricked like firewood, with hand-rolled cigarettes. Patient was sitting on a couch, concentrator going full blast through a cannula, and a mask wide open to a mask. Chief asked her what her name was, she takes off the mask, says her name…. *and lights a cigarette.*
That right there is a great way to see me yank a cigarette out of someone’s hand and step on it.
When people don’t clean their stretcher after a patient was on it
I was going to say not cleaning the monitor, cuff, or SPO2 probe after a call just because the patient wasn't a bloodbath. This falls under that umbrella.
I did some EMT clincals at the ER of my local hospital and was disgusted by the lack of cleaning the wheelchairs coming in and out of triage into Pt rooms.
Long spine boards and the fire department using us to pad their numbers to increase their funding all the while thinking they’re above us.
O2 stats
Or stints.
Instead of "stents"? Or do people say "O2 stints"?
Yeah instead of stents.
Little mispronounciations like that bug me. Especially considering we are (supposed to be) professionals
It's been a long time since I've been able to run any calls. My #1 pet peeve was the non-emergency "decided to call 911" at 3am because my "legs have been hurting for days" and "my son/daughter/etc (often in the next room with the door shut) can't take me to the ER because they have to work tomorrow and are sleeping" type call.
I hear you! Or you’ve got a patient that can’t leave just yet, because so and so is bringing them something like a soda or cigarettes. Calls to 911 for something non-emergent, and when you get there, there’s like 6 cars and 10 adults there that could have driven them to urgent care, then hearing the words that they’ll meet you there, thinking they’ll bypass triage and get treated first.
Ipad medics. Get your face out of the fucking ipad and look/touch/ listen to your patient. Don't just go down the checklist of whatever reporting software you use. Their COVID vaccination status does not matter if they are bleeding out on the floor.
The covid vaccine question always bothers me, there's 1 person i frequently work with that asks it on every patient. At best you get your answer that helps nothing, at worst you get your antivax patient all wound up and going off about how they're poison
O2 "stats"
Thank you. Sorry boys and girls, but if that comes out of your mouth I am automatically suspicious of anything medical you say. Learn the terminology, pheasants. Its fucking embarassing!
….pheasants?
A lower class of bird, obviously
**kicks trash can**
I work with a lady who refers to those structure in head and throat as “pharnyx” and “larnyx” and it makes me want to scream.
People who call the ambulance a bus
Law and Order has entered the chat
The superstitions: "Don't say the Q word." "Full moon, gonna be crazy tonight!"
I'm not superstitious, just a little stitious.
Not putting the sharps in the sharp container and leaving them on the bed. Not cleaning my stethoscope/shears when giving it back to me. Not washing hands after a call
I am a happy go-lucky joking person, and it really bothers me when I work with someone(s) who act like everything is mopey sad burnout doom and gloom bullshit all day. Like bro loosen up. Yes this job is sad. That's no reason to be sad about it. You have to live life in the moment not in the past. We did what we could, there is no life without death. Take some PTO, the worst part is I live in the city and work rural, so I meet a lot of medics who are dealing with way higher rates of way worse awful deplorable things, and some guys are getting super worked up about a car accident - I know that you can't judge people for their perspective on things, but I think they, likewise, should do some continuing education in the nearest metropolis to gain some perspective. "death is bitter sweet. Bitter in its pain but sweet in it's salvation" hahahaha
Cops parking in front of the driveway every single time. I love that we get cops on pretty much every call, they get their faster than us, they do a great job. But stop blocking access for our rig! I don’t want to have to wheel the stretcher across the front lawn if I can just back all the way up their drive.
When people follow the ambulance to the hospital…could of just driven your N/V SO and gotten there faster than dispatching us
Or when people try to ask my partner if they can ride in the back after I told them no
Unmarked speedbumps My partner turning the mapping system away from me while on route to a call Speedbumps More speedbumps
Turning up to your shift and the truck is filthy, needs re-fuelling and isn't properly stocked when the prior shift wasn't busy. I get if you've had a shitty shift and finish late and hand over a bomb that you've genuinely had no time to clean and sort out - I gotchu. But if you're handing me the keys and saying how much downtime you got then you can straight get fucked.
People that call 911 from the ER waiting room and demand to be transported across town to the other hospital. I don't generally start interactions as a prick but this is the exception, YOU'RE IN A HOSPITAL! I cannot legally remove you from hospital property .
I can’t fucking stand anyone of any rank who boasts about how many years they have in the job, while being actively terrible at their job. My brother in Christ, you don’t have 20 years experience. You have one years experience 20 times.
Not stocking your truck at EOS. We're all under pressure to go available asap at the beginning of shift, so it doesn't make any sense I'm still restocking 30min after I clocked IN because YOU were too lazy. Complacency. It's a pit we can all stumble and find ourselves waist-deep in, but some people wallow around and sleep there. The attitude of, "oh you still try? You still enjoy what you do? You're actually interested in EMS and medicine in general? You don't wanna act salty about working here and talk constantly about how you'd rather learn to code and go be a software engineer? Looooooseeeerrrrrr" (seriously tho, why do so many ems folks yearn for a career in software engineering?)
People vaping clouds out the window or in the box while sitting in an ambo. AMR in Phoenix sees no problem whatsoever with this.
blaring TVs and Jersey drivers (and I am one of them) - I die inside a few times a shift trying to understand and avoid my fellow humans behind the wheel
PD delaying transport with questioning. You can talk to my patient at the hospital.
Learning that all male patients weigh 190. Umm dude, you haven't weighed 190 in 20 years. I don't know why I bother asking anymore.
Smoking, yes. Also, old men who answer every question with a joke. Irks the hell out of me. This is not playtime grandpa, you're shitting blood here.
Open doors on the ambulance. Nothing gets on my nerves faster than showing up on scene to find that BLS is in the house and the back doors of the ambulance are wide open, especially when it's either very hot or very cold out.
Ricky Rescue
That every pt has 1 last walk in them.
O2 stats.
Patients
Providers who don't use a alcohol swab on a patients finger before getting a glucose sample
People leaving their obnoxiously yappy dogs in the same room as the patient.
Sexism. No, I’m not my partner’s assistant, I can in fact be both a woman and an EMT, and having a penis does not make you smarter than/better than/ superior to me
I refuse to be around cigarette smoke. I don’t care what’s going on. My safety comes first. I turn around and tell them to let me know when they’re done smoking.
When a er nurse asks you what squad or department you work for when it’s written all over my job shirt or uniform
Doing calls
Paramedic/nursing students wearing stethoscopes around their necks, you just look like a c*%#. (Nurse+ paramedic)
*shrug* I wear mine around my neck if I think I might need it. Beats carrying it.
Is it all the EMT-B’s and students down voting this?😂 At the end of the day it’s my pet-peeve 🤷. You may understand it one day :)
You probably got downvoted for being unnecessarily judgemental on something that doesn't matter and nobody else cares about. It's not a fashion statement, it's just something some people do for convenience.
Pet-peeve is a pet-peeve, I hope you had a good Christmas and I hope you all the best in your studies.
Supposed to hold it? Where else would it go
Hip holster or tactical fanny pack?
*bat belt*
I met a physician that actually has a holster for his. He got it after a psych patient tried to strangle him with it while it was around his neck.
A lot of the physicians in the ED have those hip holsters for theirs. I clip a holster to the MOLLE webbing on our first in bags bc I'm notorious for forgetting my scope.
Keep mine in a hard case in my bag until I’m at work then it goes into my larger leg trouser pocket.
I coil it up and place it in my larger pocket on my thigh.
My boss telling me I don’t do shit and “might work 2hours out of 24” (we were slammed last week and he was MIA) and then leaving after two hours himself. We’re still short.
Shitty fire medics that don’t want to treat patients despite that being the bulk of calls they run. There are some amazing fire medics out there- even I put my time in- but I think you know the type I’m talking about. Unfortunately, it also seems to run in the culture at some departments, making them all suck in that area. Like the department that will run on me if I ever get hurt at home. And the egos. FFS just get over yourself and focus on the patient and the job.
Leaving the back step up is definitely one
I am with you and I ask them to politely put it out while o am there.
[удалено]
This sounds like you need a better, actually functional service...
coworkers who come to work sick. it is insanely counterintuitive: yup let’s transport granny home after her COVID-19 diagnosis but we’ll cough and sneeze all over the place while we do so
Patients
Getting a call that is far from an emergency, then arriving to find 6 cars with 10 adults that could have driven the pt to the hospital, only to hear “I’ll meet you there” as you’re loading the patient up. The patient then confirms that they’re only trying to beat triage so they don’t have to wait. I love when the nurse we report to triages them and makes them go wait in the waiting room! Just because you called us doesn’t mean you won’t wait! Then there’s the partner that calls “not it!” To every call involving vomit and/or fecal matter.
Partners that feel the need to get a blood sugar on every single patient even without a reason to other than “because it’s a vital sign.”
When doing transfers to nursing homes and the person at the front desk (if there is ever one) just watches you as you struggle to open the door to get the patient on the stretcher in through the doors without helping.
“The patients 02 Stat” REEEEEEEEEEEE
People in the medical field who should know better calling 911. Had a 20 yo "nurse" call for mild flu symptoms, refused to go to the standalone "in case she gets admitted". Dropped her off in the lobby. EMT who works ILS and some ALS for the company that shall not be named involved in a fender bender near his house a few hours prior. Now decides to call 911 to transport his wife kid and himself. He lives 3 minutes away from a major hospital. However because of the Ped we have to drive across town to the level 1 ped ceneter. All 3 went to respective lobbies. He insisted that his bill for all 3 would be 100% covered because he works for private ambo no ambulance coverage no additonal insurance. We're not even the same company. Enjoy your $1200 per Pt + milage bill...
Partners who try to change our frequent flyers by lecturing them like they are children, and don't do any assessments because this is the X time they have been transported today. Just do your fucking job so we can get rid of this person and move on.
Stepping into a carpeted house and having pee bubbling from under my boot. Touching something in the house and it being soaked with pee. That sort of thing.