Unresponsive in the waiting room of a large medical clinic. The woman is a GCS of 3 – no response at all. The staff thought she was sleeping, and then after walking by her multiple times, they finally noticed she was awfully pale and clammy. They checked her sugar. It was ten. I notice what […]

Got called to a nursing home for an unresponsive, found an obese woman laying across the bed, snoring respirations. Nurse says patient has been nodding off all morning, and won’t respond to her at all. Plus her SAts are low. This is not like her. Deep sternal rub opens her eyes, but then she shuts […]

The night before I left Baltimore, I met up with some bloggers and podcasters at a local sportsbar. It was great to put faces with people. The meeting was organized by Eric Augustus of EMS Haiku and Dan White of Paramedic Blog. Dan works for alliance medical and is the man behind the AllMed AVC […]

We get called for a diabetic and arrive at the nursing home to find one nurse pouring orange juice in the woman’s mouth, while another nurse checks her blood sugar. On the bed table, I see an empty glucagon vial and a syringe. “Her sugar was forty and she was vomiting,” the nurse says. I […]

Here are my notes from Notes from Bob Page’s Whole Lotta Shaking Going On Presentation (any inaccuracies are my fault): Seizure is a temporary malfunction of the brain, an “electrical storm in the brain.” For every 1 time someone has a seizure and calls 911, there are 20 others who don’t call. Idiopathic seizures (epilepsy) […]

Back at work. I’ve been trying to put together my conference notes, but for some reason I just feel all EMSed out. It’s odd because usually when I come back from a conference, I’m all psyched up and rearing to go. Today, its been like “What hospital do you want to go to? Okay. We’re […]

I’m safely back from the conference today in time to work tomorrow. It will take me a couple days to write up all my impressions, they’ll include: Notes on Seizures session with Bob Page Great, but chilling, session on ambulance safety with Nadine Levick. Report on beer with bloggers/podcasters. General impressions.

First session of the day was on mechanical adjuncts to CPR. Most of the session was about the physiology of CPR, which I am pretty comfortable with. The man teaching the class was a scientfic advisor to the Autopulse (but had no financial interest), and had done the Autopulse study in Richmond, Virginia, which was […]

Drove down with a fellow medic, and on the way discussed ways to get other medics more interested in education. I believe medics are not opposed to getting more education, its just that the economics of the job make it difficult to take the time off, not just to get to a nightly session, but […]

Bitterly cold here today. The tones go off and we get a call and you feel like saying “Do we have to?” or “No, I’m not going, it’s too cold!” I guess it is all what you are used to and dressing warmly enough. I’m hoping it will be warmer in Baltimore. Last year I […]