Are you pulling my leg? -femur fractures The Thomas splint was first introduced by Hugh Owen Thomas in 1875, in his book titled, Diseases of the hip, knee and ankle joints with their deformities, treated by a new and efficient method. Across the western front, the splint was adopted and by 1917, it had become standard issue [...]
Veins, Drains, and Brains (nothing rhymes with automobiles except glockenspiels) We’re familiar with IVs and ETs but there are a variety of tubes going into or out of patients. Veins A central venous catheter, (Braner, Lai, Eman, & Tegtmeyer, 2007)is usually placed via the right subclavian vein by a physician is advanced into the superior vena [...]
No longer will you ask your patient what kind of heart surgery they had upon seeing that sternotomy scar from an incision made before they saw through the length of your sternum and then reconnect it with wires after they’re done. If you haven’t already, you will have the patient that denies any heart problems [...]
The trauma triad of death is made up of hypothermia, coagulopathy, and acidosis. And when it comes to hemorrhagic shock that will occur unless we intervene as quickly as possible. If possible, we want to interrupt the development of the triad be addressing the individual parts as quickly as possible. Hypothermia occurs in cases of [...]
The life you save may not be the patient you’re treating. A head trauma patient may not be as lucky as Phineas P Gage. If you’re not familiar with his story, briefly he had a pointed iron rod 1 ¼ inches in diameter and 3 feet 7 inches log enter under his left eye and [...]
Anytime I am teaching a class, talking about congenital heart defects, I always talk about a unique patient that I had many years ago. I was once dispatched to transport a two year old girl who was having cardiac issues. When I arrived on scene, I found an unresponsive little girl, whose mother was doing CPR. [...]
Reminder, the scenario and questions that were asked of a group of paramedic students: You are called to the home of a 24-year-old female who is 36 weeks pregnant and in labor. You are met at the door and advised that she has had no prenatal care. You are also told that the patient has been [...]
Part 2 of 3 Paramedic Discussion: Reminder, the scenario and questions that were asked of a group of paramedic students: You are called to the home of a 24-year-old female who is 36 weeks pregnant and in labor. You are met at the door and advised that she has had no prenatal care. You are also [...]
Recently, I was working with a group of paramedic students, and they were given the following discussion question: You are called to the home of a 24-year-old female who is 36 weeks pregnant and in labor. You are met at the door and advised that she has had no prenatal care. You are also told that [...]
I can never remember the term when I need it, so I thought I would write a blog about the condition to try and correct that. Dextrocardia occurs when the heart is in the right side of the chest and the apex points to the right instead of the left. This condition was discovered in the [...]
