The Reality of Ramping for Student Paramedics
Ramping is real, and the sooner we set our students up for success in navigating this new way of working, the better. Educate them to expect long hours in limbo. Train them to titrate treatment over extended periods. Give them guidelines to let them meet the standards we’d like to see.
Hitting The Undo Button In The Ambulance
Undo buttons in ambulances don’t always make themselves obvious. Knowing how, why and when, or not, to go ahead is one thing, but knowing how to manage when something goes wrong, has to be our most sound safeguard in aiming for the safest of paramedic practice.
Looking For A Sense Of Purpose
With no simple solution to current issues with prehospital pandemia and wait times, it makes sense to stick to a constant search for that everyday sense of purpose. Looking out for the rewards, large or small and keep them firmly in our sights.
First Responders & First Responses
Working as a paramedic, medic, EMT, prehospital care provider or any other type of first responder differs vastly from any other role in those first seconds or minutes of arrival. In most medical-based experiences, every patient prepares themselves to enter the patient care domain, whereas, unique to emergency services, we have to enter theirs.
Loving Your Job Doesn’t Have To Be Lame
Is EMS culture accepting of those who love the role and aim to give it their all? Or are we guilty of labelling conscientious colleagues for trying to hard? If the words we use now are shaping the future of the medics we’ll rely on in old age, we need to choose them with care.
Compassion In EMS, Fighting Fatigue Or Seeking Satisfaction?
There are well-known repercussions to compassion fatigue and burnout, but if compassion satisfaction prevents this fatigue and burnout, seeking it out may make all the difference.
Are Prehospital Acts Of Kindness Losing Their Magic?
Paramedics are well known for compassion to patients and most of us will have gone out of our way to provide something above and beyond the expected service at some point. But what happens when it becomes an expectation, all part of the service?
Stand Down Fido, We’re First Responders, Not Food
Most paramedics, police officers, firefighters, first responders, community midwives, district nurses, health visitors, mobile GPs, vets, social workers and other health or public service providers like dogs. A lot of us love them. Unfortunately, the feeling isn’t always mutual.
Sorry, What’s Your Name Again?
Validating a patient's existence by using their name has a huge part to play, I know this and I firmly believe in the principle. Unfortunately, though, this is one of those things that I really struggle with. Always have. Probably always will.
Precepting Paramedics With Intent
If we remember past preceptors for their good and their bad, now's the time to decide just how you’d like to be remembered and take steps to precept successfully with intent.
A First Responder Kind of Christmas
It may be holiday season for many, but in the world of a first responder, through busy, crazy, intense shifts our minds try not to wander.
Ambulance Driver or Paramedic?
As paramedics, whilst we often take great offence at being called ambulance drivers, the question is, when it’s our turn to drive, what exactly is it that we are providing?
If Paramedics Had The Ego of Ants
How do our egos look in comparison to our ant counterparts, and can we adopt a similar approach, so that we soften ours ever so slightly?
Ambulance Detectives
It’s not just new paramedics and healthcare professionals making errors. One of the most common causes of medical mistakes and misdiagnosis is that of overconfidence.
Frontline Empathy is a Two Way Street
Empathy may be a confusing and contrary word, but one with great value, particularly in providing a buffer against professional burnout and in building positive relationships with patients.
All Aboard! Welcoming Rapid Recruits Into Healthcare
Whether we like it or not, our numbers must increase right now, before the growing gap in every healthcare workforce begins to take its toll. There are strong opinions out there, however, both for and against, fast-tracking qualifications and streamlining induction into the ranks.
The Trouble With Great Expectations
For some, it may be disappointing that paramedicine is not always the exciting, high drama, constant lights and sirens rush that we thought it would be.
