Fat Lip

What is the role of EMS? Is it to take people to the hospital or to treat and release or examine and release?

I have to say in most cases it is to take people to the hospital, or more specifically the emergency department. I will accept there are some circumstances where it is our job to respond to an emergency, and sometimes our treatment is such that no transport is neccessary. For instance, doing a lift assist or even in some cases, giving a hypoglycemic patient D50. Some hypogylcemics clearly need to go to the hospital, others you can make the case that they don't. They forgot to eat, they dropped their sugar, we gave them D50, they're back to normal. Provided they eat, have someone to watch them, and follow up with their doctor, it may be okay to leave them at home.

What I am uncomfortable with is when the ambulance is used to just check people out. A woman is punched in the face and has a fat lip. They call us to "check her out." Maybe it's because I'm tired today, but I feel like saying. If you think this is an emergency that merits an ambulance to take someone to the hospital, then we will examine the patient on the way to the hospital. But what it looks like to me is she just got punched in the mouth and has a fat lip.

Too many people seem to think the ambulance is a traveling doc in the box.

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Besides the woman with the fat lip, we did a man with chest pain and a woman in an MVA.

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The woman who was in an accident, didn't have a licence, and was trying to pretend she had altered mental status when she didn't. She had no injury, her vitals and surveys were fine. Her sugar was fine. There was no seizure activity, no neurological deficits. She spoke in whispers, pretending at times to be unresponsive. She answered some questions, and not others in a manner inconsistent with how an injured person would act.

I hate it when people don't cooperate.

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As I said, I was tired today.