We always hear that EMS is still a relatively new discipline. And in the scheme of medicine, or even public safety, that is certainly true. But we shouldn’t let the fact of its youth keep us from acknowledging that it has already been around long enough to accumulate some of its very own antiquated dogma. If you […]

There is plenty of talk about “evidence-based procedures” in EMS lately. Well, today I read an interesting article that shows a link between being busier and better patient outcomes. Okay…, now after reading that statement, what just happened to your heart rate? Was your automatic response to click the link in order find fault so you can dismiss the finding, […]

Ideas often take time to saturate a market. Even if the idea is generally recognized as a good one, complete with compelling evidence, change can still take time.  As a current example, how many agencies still have a protocol for complete spinal immobilization on a long spine board for “any fall” or “significant impact”?  On that very […]

Take the recent events that have happened and let them make you more aware, not more afraid. Work with others to help them understand the real-world of “scene safety” and practice it in every call.

There are two ways to look at the problem of employee satisfaction: is your service hiring the right sorts of people and are you the type of person that the service you actually want to work for is actively hiring?

Even if you do not subscribe to the idea of such significant change to subsidized out of hospital care, there are other potentials for community involvement that will pragmatically improve the effectiveness of emergency care such as empowering bystanders to act.

In the past several months, I have seen articles challenging standard practices toward intubation and c-spine immobilization – basic tenets of our practice – but how many agencies have made any significant investigation toward change in these protocols?

I never really considered doing book reviews on this blog or writing about specific horrific incidents either, but I finished reading “The Downwind Walk: A USAR Paramedic’s Experience after the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001” by Steve Kanarian just hours before the shots rang out at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Let me […]