After barely surviving through the night from hell and having my partner taken out with chest pains after dealing with a fraction of my daily drama, I left with the decision not to come back. I decided that after an 80 hr work-streak, I was well over due for a mental health holiday. After coming home and sending the kids off to school I check my emails and apparently some shit- heads don't agree with how I handled a few situations. The first was quite simple, an Nursing Home patient was being sent out to the ER with complaints of fever of 101.0. When we arrive, no signs of abnormal temp, no distress however has some neck pain. The patient was already receiving oxygen per her DR's orders at 2 liters. My quality control director now questions why I didn't increase her oxygen intake? Well quite simply, she wasn't in any apparent distress, no complaints of difficulty breathing and in her case as all other patients with COPD, by increasing her blood oxygen levels I'd be decreasing her co2 levels and thus interrupting her hypoxic drive possibly causing more harm than good. What the number one rule of EMS? Do No Harm! Excuse me for knowing more than my scope of practice expects me to. ...But I'll smile and nod my head.
The next incident was a bit more serious and complicated. A burn patient lay in the burn unit of a nearby hospital. With his outcome not looking so great, it was decided to hurry and send him to a neighboring hospital's cath lab for quick harboring of his organs for possible donation. Problem is... every minute counts. As requested I sent my closest paramedics whom later call to advise me that their ventilator wasn't functioning. Given the circumstances, my options were to either send another crew whom was standing by, not on a call, or let the patient die because of our failed equipment. Of course I sent the neighboring unit.
Remember this is my life we're talking about here, k. So what do you think happened next. Someone in the area that the crew should've been covering was having a massive heart attack and needed to get to a cath lab too. I did however have a backup plan and sent a crew that took a but longer than the Dr would've liked, but thankfully the patient made it.
Needless to say tomorrow with be an interesting day as I kiss ass and insist that I'll try to think more like the people telling me what to do, though they've never performed my job function in their life. But hey their my superiors and I need to respect their dumb asses.
If it weren't for Nick, my mental health day would've been a total waste. I know he may not believe it or see it in comparison with his own problems, but he really does help me more than he'll ever know.
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