rigmedic

When I got out of aviation (I was in corporate), it amazed me the number of people that are just dumbfounded that anyone would give up "such a good job". LOL They have no idea! As for the bodily fluids thing, yes you have to learn to deal with it. I started out in medicine as an EMT, then a Paramedic, then an RN. Last year, I made $115,000 (FO pay at a major). So, I am quite happy to wipe the occasional butt.

What would you like to know? I work internationally offshore, and have for several years now.

Thanks for the offer, but this is MY gravy train. LOL Oh, I forgot to mention that if I have to do schools or meetings on my offtime they pay it at Double Pay. Yep, just like the hospital.......NOT!!

If you want to know why I keep working offshore in Industrial Medicine, this is why. For our bonus this year, we all got $300 Seiko watches, engraved. For our weekly safety meeting prizes, they give away MP3 players, digital cameras, etc. I don't think I will ever go back to the hospital environment. Not as long as gas is $3/gallon. LOL

I have one of them, and it works very well in noisy environments. I rarely use it, though, because it will not hang easily around your neck. The tubing that goes from the bell up toward the earpieces has a controller, that holds the batteries. Because of this, it will not hang normally around your neck and it is a pain to keep in your pocket. But, for performance you can't beat it.

the one thing i know that would upset me (and i admit i am impatient) is when i wanted information and the primary nurse was no where to be found to give it to me. -Allison2008 Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!! As someone who knows both sides of this fence, this just drives me crazy. If you are an RN in a LTC facility and you call 911, please be prepared to give report to the PROFESSIONAL coming to give care to your patient. The medic has to do an assessment, develop a care plan, etc just like an RN. Knowing the pt's history, baseline mental status, meds, etc are all part of that assessment. I hate to generalize, but it always seems that whenever we go to a LTC facility the staff just melts away and we are left alone in the room with the pt that is blue, O2 sat of 72 (on 2lpm by NC) and no idea what the history, meds, normal status, etc is. Also, the staff doesn't seem to understand that EMS has protocols for different procedures and we can't "just put the line in and leave".

Well, what is "serious" in the ER of a Level 1 Trauma Center in the States and what is "serious" 45 miles off the coast of a third world country are two different things. LOL We have everything from dengue fever, lots of skin MRSA (incision and draining abscesses), the routine upper respiratory viruses that run rampant through the rig, etc, etc, etc. Not as much trauma as most people who are not in the oil business seem to think. There is a lot of emphasis on safety. We also do food safety, potable water testing, first aid training, vaccinations, etc.

That is correct. I run my own 2 bed clinic for 115 people and get to bank TONS of frequent flyer miles. It is a great job.

Being a rig medic is, without a doubt, ONE of the best jobs in healthcare. You get to travel the world, have complete autonomy running your own clinic far at sea, and the money is at least as good as I would make as a nurse manager.

"just being "street medics"???????????? Grrrrrrrrr:madface::trout:

For all the warts of "Big Government", and there are many, at least the citizens get a vote in how it runs. Corporate America answers ONLY to the Board of Directors of that particular corporation. Individual shareholders have virtually no say so in how the company is run, let alone a non-shareholder. So, having demonstrated the fact that their greed knows no bounds, Corporate Healthcare's days are numbered.....

It all ultimately comes down to, "Who do you trust more; Big Government or Corporate America?". After decades of watching Corporate America downsize, rightsize, outsource, create "preexisting conditions", deny coverage, and generally allow their greed to get the best of them, I think most people are ready for a change. It is a rightwing fantasy to suggest that "If only people saved more, all would be well". Meanwhile wages are flat, energy and food are going through the roof, and the Republicans want to steal Social Security. The American people have had ENOUGH of risk and uncertainty. We need to at least be able to count on the availability of healthcare.

I am certainly not a troll, and will not flame nurses. I will agree with Keith that certain aspects of my paramedic education were far superior to that of nursing school. The reverse is also true in certain areas. I think that if the pay, benefits, and job variety which exist for nurses were available for paramedics you would see VERY few medics becoming nurses. It is simply for the Benjamins.........well, that and it doesn't rain in the ER. LOL

That is good, and it should be even tougher! When we have American citizens beating down the doors to nursing schools, trying to get degrees, there is no reason to let foreigners have the few good jobs left in America. The nursing boards in the various states need to stand up NOW to block the increase in the number of H-1b visas. The things that are happening now to IT professionals could happen to nurses if we don't band together and snuff it out before it gets started.

With all due respect, you are completely kidding yourself if you think that importing foreign nurses won't diminish your own standard of living. Globalization is simply a race to the bottom in terms of wages and benefits. The only people that benefit from it are the shareholders in multinational corporations and the desperately poor in other countries. For American workers, it is a horrible deal and the nursing organizations should be working NOW to stem the tide. This can be done by requiring stringent qualifications, etc. Look at how other countries (such as Canada) handle immigration. You can't exactly just waltz into Canada and start working as an RN. We need to enact similar, very strict, rules or we will pay the consequences.

don't ya just love it when they put profits ahead of people????? by charles duhigg published: september 23, 2007 habana health care center, a 150-bed nursing home in tampa, fla., was struggling when a group of large private investment firms purchased it and 48 other nursing homes in 2002. skip to next paragraph alice garcia, with her granddaughter jacqualynn hewitt in 1995. mrs. garcia, who had alzheimer's disease, died in 2003 after a bedsore became infected at habana health care center in tampa, fla. golden opportunities a lucrative maze articles in this series are examining how businesses and investors seek to profit from the soaring number of older americans, in ways helpful and harmful. previous articles in the series » multimedia interactive graphic layers of ownership enlarge this image ozier muhammad/the new york times confronting a nursing home "i feel so guilty," said vivian hewitt, who is suing habana over her mother's death. "but there was no way for me to find out how bad that place really was." the facility's managers quickly cut costs. within months, the number of clinical registered nurses at the home was half what it had been a year earlier, records collected by the centers for medicare and medicaid services indicate. budgets for nursing supplies, resident activities and other services also fell, according to florida's agency for health care administration. the investors and operators were soon earning millions of dollars a year from their 49 homes. residents fared less well. over three years, 15 at habana died from what their families contend was negligent care in lawsuits filed in state court. regulators repeatedly warned the home that staff levels were below mandatory minimums. when regulators visited, they found malfunctioning fire doors, unhygienic kitchens and a resident using a leg brace that was broken. "they've created a hellhole," said vivian hewitt, who sued habana in 2004 when her mother died after a large bedsore became infected by feces. habana is one of thousands of nursing homes across the nation that large wall street investment companies have bought or agreed to acquire in recent years. those investors include prominent private equity firms like warburg pincus and the carlyle group, better known for buying companies like dunkin' donuts. as such investors have acquired nursing homes, they have often reduced costs, increased profits and quickly resold facilities for significant gains. but by many regulatory benchmarks, residents at those nursing homes are worse off, on average, than they were under previous owners, according to an analysis by the new york times of data collected by government agencies from 2000 to 2006. the times analysis shows that, as at habana, managers at many other nursing homes acquired by large private investors have cut expenses and staff, sometimes below minimum legal requirements. regulators say residents at these homes have suffered. at facilities owned by private investment firms, residents on average have fared more poorly than occupants of other homes in common problems like depression, loss of mobility and loss of ability to dress and bathe themselves, according to data collected by the centers for medicare and medicaid services. the typical nursing home acquired by a large investment company before 2006 scored worse than national rates in 12 of 14 indicators that regulators use to track ailments of long-term residents. those ailments include bedsores and easily preventable infections, as well as the need to be restrained. before they were acquired by private investors, many of those homes scored at or above national averages in similar measurements. in the past, residents' families often responded to such declines in care by suing, and regulators levied heavy fines against nursing home chains where understaffing led to lapses in care. but private investment companies have made it very difficult for plaintiffs to succeed in court and for regulators to levy chainwide fines by creating complex corporate structures that obscure who controls their nursing homes. by contrast, publicly owned nursing home chains are essentially required to disclose who controls their facilities in securities filings and other regulatory documents. the byzantine structures established at homes owned by private investment firms also make it harder for regulators to know if one company is responsible for multiple centers. and the structures help managers bypass rules that require them to report when they, in effect, pay themselves from programs like medicare and medicaid. investors in these homes say such structures are common in other businesses and have helped them revive an industry that was on the brink of widespread bankruptcy. "lawyers were convincing nursing home residents to sue over almost anything," said arnold m. whitman, a principal with the fund that bought habana in 2002, formation properties i. homes were closing because of ballooning litigation costs, he said. so investors like mr. whitman created corporate structures that insulated them from costly lawsuits, according to his company. "we should be recognized for supporting this industry when almost everyone else was running away," mr. whitman said in an interview. some families of residents say those structures unjustly protect investors who profit while care declines. when mrs. hewitt sued habana over her mother's death, for example, she found that its owners and managers had spread control of habana among 15 companies and five layers of firms. as a result, mrs. hewitt's lawyer, like many others confronting privately owned homes, has been unable to establish definitively who was responsible for her mother's care.

There are certainly some entrenched special interests with DEEP pockets that will do their best to torpedo this thing. I will be very surprised if she can get it done in the first term, assuming she wins. If any of the Republicans win we can keep enriching Blue Cross and Blue Shield for another 4 years. It will boil down to whether or not people are really fond of the for-profit insurance industry. After years and years of "preexisting conditions", "out of network providers", and repeated denials of care I think the insurance industry has cut its own throat. The interesting thing is that all the Democrats are now for some form of nationalized healthcare. The Republicans are being forced to discuss healthcare and offer something other than just a tax cut, which is their universal cure-all. This tells me that the issue is resonating with the public and that we are moving toward reform. I still think it will take several years, though.

I did not mean to confuse anyone. I do not have brain cancer, but was using that as an illustration. The bottom line is that we need to remove for-profit corporations from the healthcare system. While the Clinton plan does not go straight to single-payer, it is an acceptable step in that direction for me.

The good news in all of this is that our present healthcare system WILL NOT survive in its present form. That is good, because it is a fundamentally immoral system. When a corporation has a vested financial interest (it will make more money) in denying me care for my brain cancer, there is a huge problem. I see the Clinton plan as a middle of the road, achievable plan that will head us where we need to going. All the other countries manage to pull this off with no difficulty. I know lots of people that live in Canada and the UK. Not ONE of them would trade their system for ours. Not one!

Jolie, Two points to your last post. First, if the rich people had to pay Social Security taxes on ALL of their earnings (wages, as well as investment income) there would be zero problem with SS funding. As it is now, they only pay taxes on the first $87,900. I pay Social Security taxes on 100% of my earnings. That is fundamentally unfair. If you'll notice, their "solution" to the problem is to turn all retirees over to the tender mercies of Wall St. The thoughts that "government is incompetent" and "I can do better in the market than Social Security" sound very good in an environment of historic stock market highs, and near-record low interest rates. Let those things invert and a LOT of people will be singing a quite different song!

Owning a Windows-based computer is sort of like owning a British sportscar. You'd better have a good set of tools and like tinkering with it to get it to work. Personally, after a long time of Windows usage I finally made the switch to the Mac. I will never, ever go back. It simply works better, and the main reason is that everything is MADE to work together instead of each component being made by different companies. The newer Macs can even run Windows programs. How cool is that? I had a problem with my laptop and made an appointment (online) for service at the local Apple Store. I showed up at the designated time and was seen immediately (no waiting in line). The person quickly identified the problem and shipped the computer away for repair. Two days later, it was delivered to my home by UPS repaired, free of charge, and they even updated the operating system to the latest version. Try getting that from BestBuy and the Geek Squad!! LOL

Two thoughts on this subject, if I may. First, I think we will ultimately end up with some form of universal single payer healthcare, just like the rest of the developed world. This will be, however, an 8 to 10 year process. The proposal Hillary outlined is an achievable first step in that process. Second, the basic question in the debate about healthcare reform is whether or not your personal health is just another consumer buying decision, like a car, or whether it is fundamentally different. We don't leave fire protection, police protection, or national security up to the "free market". We recognize those functions as distinctly different and something that it is not appropriate for corporations to control. As a nation, average citizens are being asked to take on greater and greater levels of risk while their wages are kept relatively flat. Twenty years ago, it was quite common to be able to retire from a longterm employer and receive a "defined benefit" pension. The companies decided that was costing them too much and now everyone has a 401k. If the stock market tanks, no more retirement. Great plan! In my personal opinion, both healthcare and retirement should be run by the government with the employers making contributions to both. Look back over history and you will see thousands of companies having come and gone. The government has always been there. If we did that sort of system, it wouldn't matter who you worked for or where you lived, your healthcare and retirement would be secure. We will eventually get there, but it will just take a lot of years and a lot of dust being thrown up by the corporate interests that will fight the change.

Okay guys, give it to me straight. What are going to be my biggest challenges transitioning from being a medic to working as an ER nurse? I know that I feel comfortable with ACLS, PALS, 12-leads, IV's and other "medic stuff". In addition, I have worked offshore as a medic where we do suturing, antibiotics, advanced airways, etc. I am very comfortable with triaging, patient assessments, and the general management of chaos. I am a whole lot LESS comfortable with the more "nursy" things like foley caths, bed baths, etc. I know that I need to ask my preceptors lots of questions and to work hard to get out of the medic mindset, but it is my hope that my experience as a street medic will enhance my ability as an ER nurse rather than detract from it. I would enjoy hearing from anyone else that made the transition from the ambulance to the ER.

Try http://www.highwayhypodermics.com There is a section that rates different travel companies. Good luck.

I took it several months ago, and it was a tough exam. It is about 60 percent physiology and only about 40 percent anatomy. Not very much on identifying bones and structures, but LOTS of emphasis on hormones, regulatory processes, etc. In short, it sort of presupposes that you know the Where of everything. The exam tests your understanding of the Why.