Practical EMS

Dr. Emma Jones is a hospice and palliative care physician, also worked as a pediatric oncologist and pediatrician. She’s been in the field for over 10 years and is active in helping healthcare professionals with burnout in the modern medical system. She is the author of The Phoenix Blueprint, Emerging Stronger from the Blaze of Healthcare https://www.emmajonesmd.com Sometimes you need to realize y...

Bryan Jepson MD and CFP, author of The Physician's Path to True Wealth: 12 steps to gaining control over your money and your time – you can find it on Amazon and at this website for free Bryan Jepson MD, CFP® | physician finance Disclaimers: This is not specific financial advice, this is general education. Talk with your own advisor or schedule with Bryan to get specific advice  The easiest,...

Bryan Jepson MD and CFP, author of The Physician's Path to True Wealth: 12 steps to gaining control over your money and your time – you can find it on Amazon and at this website for free Bryan Jepson MD, CFP® | physician finance Disclaimers: This is not specific financial advice, this is general education. Talk with your own advisor or schedule with Bryan to get specific advice  The earlier y...

We need to remember that paramedic and EMT’s are solely focused on emergency medicine vs RN’s or even PA’s who are trained in general medicine then learn how to do EM later on Learning sick vs not sick is a skill that develops with time, it’s not always easy Gestalt can be an important factor in your assessment but don’t trust it all the time, it can lead you astray A negative work-up does not alw...

How do we have long careers and avoid burnout? Micah talks about burnout and how we have the advantage in emergency medicine that we can leave work at work and step back Have time off and don’t work overtime every time an opportunity arises, don’t only discuss work with your spouse, have other interests that you can engage in Emergency medicine is a fun job to identify with because we get to save...

How do we handle the sensitive hand-off reports from EMS to the ED? Different aspects, like potentially violent family members, unsafe scenes, are often a critical details that need to be conveyed to the ED but don’t have to be announced to everyone in the hand-off report in front of the patient Micah works as a field and ER paramedic. He talks about this situation and how it’s going for him. He e...

New panel with Audrianna (RN), Alex (paramedic), Casey (paramedic) and Micah (paramedic) What do the ER nurses like to get in the hand-off report from EMS? Audrianna likes to hear clear, concise reports. How ambulatory was the patient on scene?  Casey recalls from years ago how the ER nurses didn’t understand enough about what EMS did, that always made giving reports more difficult and how that ha...

Some ambulance crews may not have the best understanding of how a fire crew is going to run a call, with everyone assigned specific roles – often the fire department will be allowing a new crew member to lead the call I always struggled with arriving first on scene on the ambulance because that role is more work and more pressure  What does fire like from the ambulance crews when they arrive first...

How do we have successful, long careers in EMS? John recommends living away from where you work, doing unrelated activities outside of work so your life doesn’t revolve around work things Taking care of someone you know is an odd position to be in, it can mess with your ability to be objective Jason says we need to have an awareness of how we are feeling and how those around us are feeling, therap...

Our system has made access to EMS trained medical directors much easier, which is a huge benefit to the crews The EMS fellowship for MD’s tends to attract those that are interested in helping EMS because they are passionate about it and not in it for the money We are always trying to give EMS the amount of time they deserve when giving reports from the ER side Kash talks about his technique in get...

New panel: Fire officer/paramedic John, fire paramedic Jason, retired fire paramedic Terry and EMS medical director Kash How to determine capacity and how this differs from competency  This becomes critical when doing refusals – when the patient decides not to be transported – a very high liability part of EMS This is different than AAOX4 Capacity is very situational and specific, competency is de...

The difficult admissions are the generally weak, unable to walk with no acute findings. They typically do not uncover any acute findings while in the hospital In the ED, we can probably do a better job of involving some of our resources like social work to really give the patient and their family a better understanding of what admission will and won’t accomplish for them Part of the America cultur...

EM and IM physicians don’t get a great insight into each other’s careers in medical school or in residency Do hospitalists like doing consults as opposed to just taking admission requests? Sean says, yes, because it gives us an opportunity to solve problems together. They want to be consulted as much as possible  Admissions would be greatly decreased if there was more robust outpatient follow up a...

New panel with Adam and Sean. Emergency and IM medicine physicians  There is a study from 2023 called Battles to Burnout. Studying the role of inter-physician conflict in burnout. Primarily the conflict between emergency physicians and internal medicine physicians. A better relationship leads to less burnout Sean moved from primary care to hospitalist medicine when COVID was at its peak Adam, EM p...

A difficult aspect of the job is the poor understanding of the public of what we do in EMS, and the poor understanding that our non-EMS friends and family have of what we do Those of us in EMS can understand each other better, we have seen the same tragedy and struggled with the same difficulties that are so hard to articulate What does retirement look like from a career paramedic in EMS? Casey st...

I tell those EMT’s that want to go to PA school or further education to just skip paramedic school. Go to paramedic school if you want to be a paramedic “I’m not doing it for the pay, I’m doing it because I love it.” Being a paramedic puts you in a unique position to save someone’s life in the span of 5 minutes Eddie took calls personally. He gave every call his everything Sometimes the patients s...

We talk about the immense responsibility and stress of being a paramedic and the stress difference I’ve noticed moving to ER PA Casey talks about RSI and how it still causes his palms to sweat We should have a healthy respect for high level skills As paramedics we can tend to focus too much on a complicated task and neglect the overall picture of what is happening with the patient, a good partner...

Best online EKG course you can finish in less than 4 hours: Practical EKG Interpretation - Practical EMS 4 Category 1 CME credits - Fundamentals through advanced interpretation Welcome our new panel Eddie and Casey, two very experienced paramedics 27 and 48 years in the field Casey talks about AI potential in the field and a study he was involved in. Will AI help us or improve patient care? Will h...

Whatever your beliefs regarding God or lack of a God as you work in emergency medicine, I hope this episode will uplift and encourage you Laurie likes to reflect on the one patient she was there to help during the day. Or the one patient she was there to interact with It is important to reflect on your highs, your lows and even things that made you laugh Where is that line of caring for people and...

Whatever your beliefs regarding God or lack of a God as you work in emergency medicine, I hope this episode will uplift and encourage you Daniel talks about how the most anxious person in the room gets the most attention, but we should strive to be the non-anxious presence in the room. The non-anxious presence rebukes and resets the system Daniel talks about how the people of God should strive to...

Whatever your beliefs regarding God or lack of a God as you work in emergency medicine, I hope this episode will uplift and encourage you New panel! Welcome Pastor Daniel Grothe, ER Physician Eric and ER PA Laurie Daniel talks about the life of a pastor, which isn’t exactly as we all might assume. He talks about being a brand new, young pastor and how he responded to the home after the suicide of...

Kevin Hazzard  Author of A Thousand Naked Strangers and American Sirens (you can find these on Amazon or wherever books are sold). You can find Kevin Hazzard at KevinHazzard.com Kevin talks about the story Jesus told of the good Samaritan as really the first example of EMS. Jesus tells this story in response to a lawyer asking him how to obtain eternal life. A man was attacked on the road and left...

Kevin Hazzard  Author of A Thousand Naked Strangers and American Sirens (you can find these on Amazon or wherever books are sold). You can find Kevin Hazzard at KevinHazzard.com What does Kevin miss about EMS? He misses the partnerships and the chaos you went through together. The memories he has are both good and bad from his time in EMS, the failures and the mistakes but also the victories We ge...

Kevin Hazzard  Author of A Thousand Naked Strangers and American Sirens (you can find these on Amazon or wherever books are sold). You can find Kevin Hazzard at KevinHazzard.com We talk about the difference of caring for someone dying in their home vs the hospital bed There is something more intimate about dealing with death in a home, where the person had lived In a lot of way this is harder to d...

Kevin Hazzard  Author of A Thousand Naked Strangers and American Sirens (you can find these on Amazon or wherever books are sold). You can find Kevin Hazzard at KevinHazzard.com Paramedic from 2004-2013 for Grady hospital in Atlanta He talks about the self-doubt he had in the writing process and how he wasn’t sure anyone would relate to his stories However, the specific details he describes are su...