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Airway Apathy vs. Apoplexy
by Kennard Skaggs CCEMT-P, FTO/CTO
I sometimes think that "Yes I have been in EMS long enough", Long enough to see the transformation of EMS from funeral homes, to hospital based, to Private, to County 3rd service....and next.....who knows.
The pendulum has swung from "Stay and play, to load and go, to fly em' high". The merit badge to which you refer is earned from the den master (or mother as the case may be). This "aid the apprentice" mentality is very prevalent in medicine. Young Physicians learn from more senior Physicians, and the skills are passed down from generation to generation.
Nurses have the same skill progression from the more senior nurses (or journeyman nurses) to the younger (apprentice) nurses; the skills are learned and passed on to the next generation. For those of us that remember the TV show Emergency, Roy was the senior paramedic (or Master Paramedic) to Johnny's Apprentice.
However "Master Paramedics" are leaving the business, they are being used up and discarded, and Detroit would call this planned obsolescence. Whereby you create a paramedic, use "it" till it breaks, and just get a new one. The local community College is churning them out as fast as they can, and some agencies are even having the schools (or factories) come to the agency to make them. This using up and discarding of paramedics is never more prevalent than in System Status type agencies.
And then Medical directors look at the bottom line of the Q/A forms and wonder "Why are my paramedics not able to perform a certain skill?" for this discussion it is intubation, but next it will be IVs, or another advanced invasive skill that was taught to us by the "Master Paramedic" to the apprentice.
So ask yourself "What Would Roy Do?"
Kennard Skaggs CCEMT-P, FTO/CTO
Jun 7, 2006,
09:00
Kennard Skaggs CCEMT-P, FTO/CTO
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About the columnist: Matt is the Director of
Tri-State Ambulance, a not-for-profit subsidiary of the Gundersen Lutheran Healthcare System located in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Tri-State serves as the sole 9-1-1 advanced life support provider for the 2,200 square mile greater Coulee Region local in Western Wisconsin and Eastern Minnesota.
He holds a Masters Degree in Health Service Administration and has 25 years experience in EMS including volunteer, fire department, public and private sector EMS agencies. He is a former paramedic and has managed private sector ambulance services from 10,000 to more than 100,000 annual call volume in locations including Fairfield, Connecticut; Augusta, Georgia and Orlando, Florida. He has also served as a regulator in Lincoln, Nebraska and Volusia County (Daytona Beach), Florida.
Matt is a frequent speaker at national conferences and has done consulting in numerous EMS issues, specializing in high performance EMS system operations, public/media relations, public policy, employee recruitment and retention, data analysis, costing strategies and EMS research.
He has served as the American Ambulance Association as Chair of the Industry Image Committee and membership on the Professional Standards, Strategic Development and Management Training Institute Committees.
Matt is an Adjunct Faculty for the UCF's College of Health and Public Affairs teaching courses in Healthcare Economics and Policy, Ethics, Managed Care and US Healthcare Systems.
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