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

Boundaries are important to set up in your work. Proper emotional bo...

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 you may be part of someone else’s plan...

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, most straightforward way to start crea...

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 you can get financially literate and wo...

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 always mean there isn’t something dangero...

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 lives, but you should not make it your...

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 enjoys the number of resources he has ...

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 has improved over the years

I always try ...

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?

First on scene should be allowed to ...

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, therapy is always a great option, get outsid...

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 getting a good report from EMS on the hig...

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 determined by a judge

We determine capacit...

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 culture does put us in unique situations as...

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 ability but various factors make this d...

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 physician, returns to the show

Sean enjo...

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 struggles with this, it’s hard to think ...

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 survive despite all the odds being again...

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 can really help avoid this

It can be re...

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 humans be needed at all?

Can AI repli...