Routine. Routine. Routine. Twice in just a couple weeks I have been saved by routine. Here’s what happened this time. First, a little background. The first responders in one of the towns I work in have decided they will no longer respond to lift assists without injury. It was argued to the high-ups that well, […]

Monday and Tuesday I spent in field training officer/preceptor classroom training. We all thought the meetings were going to be about going over the nuts and bolts of the job, but it was instead more of a focus on safety issues and adult learning. I hate meetings, particularly mandated day long meetings that cover material […]

Four more chapters of the novel Mortal Men are posted at the following site: Mortal Men *** It’s been a typical day in the suburbs. A nursing home rectal bleed, an elderly man from home with pneumonia, a lady with hypertension and a nose bleed, and a call from our most frequent flyer — Hazel, […]

Back many months ago I wrote in Scenario about a call where I intubated a patient who was a DNR, but not a DNI. In the comments section there was discussion about the categories of DNR. In this state we have several different forms. The other day from the same nursing home where the DNR, […]

The call is for a sudden death; mother took her last breaths according to the son, and does not wish to be resuscitated. They send us in a non-emergency mode. I tell my partner we should probably be going lights and sirens until we know what is going on. He radios dispatch and they say […]

This weekend I went down to Foxwoods for my annual poker excursion at an event called FARGO, which stands for Foxwoods Annual Recreational Gambling Outing. Every year since 1997 a group of poker players who discuss strategy on the internet have been meeting for several days to play poker and earn bragging rights amongst themselves. […]

We’re called for a woman feeling faint after accidently leaving the stove on. Low priority response. We pull up to the house and see only a police car out in front. No fire department. A woman waves me in the front door. She is smiling and seems perfectly healthy. I ask her if she is […]

I give a lot of pain medicine to my patients, but from everything I am reading I am not giving enough. In the last week I gave pain medicine to the following: 1. An 80 year old man with a compression fracture of the lower back. He slept all the way to the hospital. 2. […]

We are sent for a man with lung cancer difficulty breathing. Visiting nurse on scene. We’ve been going to this house a lot recently. Small one story house in a lower middle class neighborhood. The grass in the yard is mostly dead, the driveway cracked. The house needs painting. The stink hits you from the […]