firemed483

Try some of the books by Barbara Aehlert, she has books on EKGs and also a study guide for ACLS. I find she explains things very well.

Don't give up, you are not a failure. When I first took my ACLS I had to go into a room with a panel of an ED Doc, 2 charge nurses and an oscilloscope. They were firing questions at me left right and center, in the back of my mind a little voice was telling me " I'm an RT, why the hell am I doing this?" I have now been an instructor for several years and we have a prerequisite of an EKG class for first time takers. The AHA has changed the formatt of the classes over the past couple of years with the expectation of students having the knowledge prior to the classes, look out for classes that will help you with the knowledge or borrow study books there are a lot of good ones out there. Get back in there prepared, good luck.

I don't think things will improve until people understand the word "EMERGENCY" on the sign at the door. I am sure everyone has experienced the patients who arrive with a minor ailment that has been going on for several weeks or even months and they have to be seen today as they can't get into their PCP for 3 days. After triage they find they are down the list below the MI, diff breathing, abd pain, etc. and have to wait, so next time they come in with "Chest pain" and the minor ailment. After a few visits this takes too long so they call 911 and get rushed through, all tests are negative "But while they are here can you look at this..?" Meanwhile the man in the corner of the waiting room wonders if he really needs to be here, since the place is very busy with all these really sick people and he only has some bad "indigestion" and a little shortness of breath. I once had to tell an insistent patient "I am sorry, you are somewhere between the heart attacks and the hangnails, but you will be seen before the hangnails." Until we have patient patients our patients will try our patience.

We recently had a discussion about keeping Combitubes in our 'difficult airway' cart in the ED, the only justification we could come to was some studies that used them to tamponade bleeding in severe facial trauma. One of our local EMT crews will use them occasionally but we usually replace with ETT on arrival.