Divemedic

It seems like the ATF is a bit angry at the 3D handgun printing project. They are giving the folks a hard time about it, and claiming that manufacturing a pistol without a manufacturers license is against the law, even if you have no intention of selling it. That is not in keeping with longstanding regulations.

In related news, the manufacturer of the printer has revoked the printer lease. I wonder if the ATF had anything to do with that.

The comments on the article are pretty stupid: this is all necessary to prevent terrorists from printing guns. As if you can’t already buy full auto AK47s made by hand in a cave in Afghanistan for $15.

If you remember, I posted a few months back about a push to have a referendum on the ballot for voters to approve a law that would require Orange County employers offer sick leave to their employees. The law would require that an employer give employees one hour off with pay for each 37 hours the employee works. This will increase labor costs by at least three percent.

Of course, there were lawsuits. Unfortunately for the socialists, they sued the wrong person. By the time they got around to suing the correct one, it was too late to stop the ballots, which were already being printed.

The thinking astounds me. The proponents of the law say that “it’s wrong for employees to be punished financially if they’re too ill to come into work.” but see no problem with punishing a business financially if the employee doesn’t work.

Looks like the “Captain of a Crew of One” has had a bit of a mutiny, unless we are to believe that he has posted 46 posts today about cutting hair…

A firefighter is forced to resign for writing a Facebook post after a call where a
2-year-old was hit by a car, allegedly stating that the child was
unattended and asking where the mother was.

How many times have we all
wondered the same thing? It’s a shame that a man has lost his job, and
three others are facing discipline, while the irresponsible parent gets
nothing for allowing this child to be out on the street to be injured.

Public safety agencies are so worried about this politically correct attitude, so afraid of ruffling feathers, that they  would rather hang employees out to dry than ask why a 2 year old was on the street unsupervised.

Yet another reason why I retired. 

Medic Protip of the day: Sepsis in an infant causes intravascular volume
depletion via increased capillary permeability and vasodilation. This is a form of distributive shock. The therapy of choice for pediatric patients with sepsis (as evidenced by tachycardia and increased capillary refill time in a febrile patient) is bolus doses of isotonic crystalloid or colloid fluids. This should be done until perfusion improves, or new onset rales develops. Dose is 10-20 ml/kg, titrated to heart rate, capillary refill, urinary output, and changes in level of consciousness.

So I sat through a class this week that has been given to all military personnel for the past through years, called Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC). The course was being taken by a variety of students, including two cops, five paramedics, two paramedic students, six firemedics, and a prepper.

The instructor introduces the course, and says how topical and important it is, because of spree shooters, and how they present a great risk to rescuers. He then mentions that the recent shooting in New York, and holds it up as an example of why the course is so important.

So I pointed out to him that 10 of the 11 people shot in the incident were shot by the responders. He argued with me and told me how wrong I was, until another student backed me up. His comment at that point was “Oh well, casualties of war.”

That is the mentality that is present in the police force, summed up in one conversation.

One of the struggles that I have as an EMS educator and as a practitioner is laziness. That is, too many people in the medical field want to take the easy way out. They want to do the minimum that will not get them fired or sued, and then move on to the next task.

I have seen incompetent doctors, paramedics, nurses, and other supposed professionals do what is in their own best interest, and not what is in the patient’s best interest. In many cases, that means blindly following some algorithm or procedure, without applying even the smallest bit of thought to what is actually going on with the patient.

As an educator, I even see this all of the time. Paramedic students who are being asked to learn the underlying physiology and mechanisms of a patient, to better treat and help that patient, frequently complain that the class is too hard. They just want to learn protocol. They want to practice cookbook medicine.

I teach paramedic classes at a two year, private college. As a part of ongoing QI, the school looks at a list of data. They look at the passing rates of graduates taking state board exams, the completion rates of the students taking the courses, and they also do a quarterly opinion poll where the students get to rate the instructors. There are four instructors who work in the paramedic education department.

In this poll, the students complained that two of the instructors simply read the power points to them. I always hated that as a student, and I have always tried to avoid that. I really believe that the instructors who teach that way are doing so because they are not familiar with the material.

The complaints in the poll about my class were that it was too difficult, that they only want to learn: “if you see symptom A, give drug Y” and not have to learn anything about the underlying processes. I was told by the department head that I have to “dumb down” my classes, so that the poll numbers look better. It looks like I will have to teach cookbook medicine from now on.

I am ready to go back to the clinical environment. I have been teaching for eight years, and retired from paramedicine for 9 months. I am ready to get out of academia.I don’t want to create technicians, I want to create professionals. It looks like I am trying to deliver a product that no one wants.