(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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It’s dinner time. We’re at an Asian restaurant, your typical ethnic neighborhood Asian restaurant.
“How many?”
“Actually, can we just get something to go, please?”
“Sure. But you want to eat here? More comfortable?”
“Well, we may have to go on calls.”
“I wrap it up for you if you go, OK? You sit down. More comfortable that way.”
“Um… OK, thanks.”
What a great idea. An uninterrupted dinner. It was comfortable indeed. Much more comfortable than eating in the rig.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Some asshole bureaucrat complained to our bosses at our agency that we sat down for a cup of coffee while on duty* in our response district, and the coffee shop – already not a fan of politicians, bureaucrats and small business-related red tape – found out.
So, the next time the same asshole bureaucrat showed up for coffee, the coffee shop told him he was not welcome because he was not supportive of us. I’d like to thank this coffee shop.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...I loved Dr. Rich Gasaway’s work on situational awareness. I believe that the lack of situational awareness is a very common observation on complex emergency scenes, especially in an era when we have people who are ill-fitted for this type of work doing this type of work, where sometimes crews operating under heavy pressure simply run out of brain space to get the stressful, critical decisions right.
So, the following short article in the newspaper, quoted in full, made me laugh:
Three people tried to carjack a man at gunpoint Saturday night, but left the car when they were unable to drive a manual transmission, police said. At about 7:10 p.m., three men approached the victim in front of his home in the 200 block of Hampshire Street as he was unloading his groceries. At least two suspects were armed with handguns, police said.
They pointed the guns at him, demanded his car keys and forced him to the ground.
The suspects then entered the car, which has a manual transmission, but stalled it, got out and fled on foot, police said.
The victim was not injured.
The trio were described as black men, about 20, 5-feet-11, with thin builds.
I’d say that was a good example of a lack of situational awareness.
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...There are all sorts of training materials devoted to the secrets behind being a successful supervisor. Is it integrity? Is it competence? Is it fairness? Is it trustworthiness? Or is it understanding?
I think that this is all a little too specific. In fact, so specific that whenever this topic is addressed in some classroom setting, the instructors inevitably provide in one way or another a huge list of 50 or 100 adjectives that describe different desirable attributes that people may want in a supervisor. Many of these words have similar and overlapping meanings as other words. Worse, students are then asked to choose several as a demonstration that different employees prefer different types of supervisors.
I submit to you that instead of thinking of specific attributes, we should be thinking of general attributes that make someone a good supervisor. I have only 2 general attributes, and in them you can see many, many of the aforementioned specific attributes:
That’s all I ask.
If we look at it this way, it’s apparent that what people want in supervisors is not that varied after all.
(7 votes, average: 4.57 out of 5) Loading ...I will happily listen to you prattle on and on about the updates on the ever-changing guidelines, but please don’t use your 9 months of experience to question how I manage patients or insinuate that I’m doing things wrong.
And yes, I AM bored at this class. No shit, Sherlock. I’ve had 2 hours of sleep. I don’t want to be here, but it’s mandatory. You cover nothing interesting, nothing stimulating. I’m sitting next to non-EMS people who don’t know how to ask two consecutive assessment questions that make sense if their (and patients’) lives depended on them. You only have bits and pieces of equipment but you want me to use it like it’s a real call. Your “scenarios” are so ridiculously unrealistic and far-fetched they’re filed under “fiction” and they could only have been dreamed up by people who haven’t seen a real call. (Oh wait, that’s you.) Your stupid instructional videos are so fake even the bootleggers don’t want them. These guidelines will be customized months, if not years, later by local EMS agencies anyway before we’re even allowed to follow them, so these classes are basically worthless.
Have you ever run a “megacode” that is so neat and tidy? Rhythm changes perfectly lined up with each 2-minute cycle? Medications that always work? Such a clear-cut line between stable and unstable based on a single criterion? Well, no, because you really haven’t been to that many calls.
And fuck “team dynamics” and “constructive intervention” and all that other bullshit psychobabble. In the real world, when people depend on you, it’s, “Do your fucking job properly or I will send your stupid ass home.”
In fact, I’m straight up sick and tired of all of this shit known as ACLS, PALS, BTLS and whatever other acronyms there are out there that represent each and every stupid class I have to sit through every 2 years simply because it’s required.
Don’t bother me. Leave me the fuck alone. And let us all out of here early.
My God… am I cranky.
