This is a rehash of an old article I found on the site from 2005. The article was just asking if RN's had experience working in the ED with medics. The responses varied from positive to mostly negative from the RN's at that time. Some responses from the nurses makes you wonder how they got a degree in anything, but times have changed. My career in EMS started with the fire dept where I retired after 20yrs working in a large metropolitan city. After my retirement, I started my 2nd career working in the ED as a Paramedic back around 2014. It was a new concept at the time in Georgia & myself as well as others were openly treated like EVS techs by the nurses. It was a kind of like, go play in your own sandbox, from the nurses.
Now here it is 2020 and I get nothing but support from the ED providers and RN's (except for the fact that we eliminated LPN's from the ED's in Georgia). I work for a major healthcare system with hospitals, urgent care centers, managed health, ETC. ETC. all over Georgia. Mostly concentrated in the metro Atlanta area & like it or not. If you come into an ED in Metro Atlanta. You will most likely encounter a Paramedic who is not emptying the trash, but a major player in your care team.
In Georgia, Paramedics have unrestricted licenses & whether working in the streets or in the ED. Our scope of practice is set by the medical director where we are employed & only after we have been trained and shown proficiency in the procedure or task. Where I work, when the crap hits the fan. No one cares what letters you have after your name and we all work as a team!
Back to the original question. This is how things flow in my facility. You go to acute care or fast track based on your acuity. Only an RN can triage and assign an acuity and only an RN can discharge a pt. Everything in between, the paramedics do. We can see the same screen you see. We are legally able, trained and proficient at administering any medication ordered by the provider with some exceptions. In Georgia, Paramedics cannot give colloids (we can hang a second and further bags of blood, but not the first even though we are trained to recognize a hemolytic reaction , anti-coagulants( unless on a TPA program) or insulin. We can jack you B/P or glucose up, but we cannot lower it. We are proficient in endotracheal intubation, needle chest decompression, needle cricothyrotomy, intraosseous placement ETC ETC.
Bottom line is. We all have our skills and the patients need all of us working together to save them. If you dont want a medic messing with your patient. Tell me and the charge nurse and I won't help you and after you've stuck the patient 10 times. I'll come and put an 18 EJ in for you because you have destroyed all their distal veins before you ask for help even though I know you won't says thanks. Also Paramedics pick up after themselves. We dont throw the crap in the floor or in the IV carts for others to pick up.
