Great Emt Communication
Good EMT’s know protocol, Great EMT’s understand their patient…
Empathy is defined by: The intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.
I recently talked to a majority of my family, friends and acquaintances to brainstorm with me about what I would write about in this class. I got tons of ideas: EMS in the rural setting, complications of childbirth in a pre-hospital setting, dealing with certain diseases that need specialized care, and overall I received a ton of complaints about how someone was treated. So, because I am the type of person who was taught from a young age to treat others the way you want to be treated, I thought I would do my paper on patient “bedside manner”. …show more content…
We go to school, learn the local and national protocols, take some tests and get licensed. Do our patients really think about how much education we have had or what our credentials are? No…instead they open the doors to their homes to us, assume we know what we are doing and let us into their personal space. They let us invade them in ways most would not let close family invade. We learn about the SAMPLE, the OPQRST, contraindications of meds, how to deal with airway, breathing and cardiac problems…but do we truly know how to understand the patient? That is something learned and it is a valuable resource when working in the EMS field. For instance, you get called to a 47 year old male with first time chest pain at 4 a.m. You begin your assessment with an introduction of you and your partner and go through the motions. You check his airway and breathing and respond by placing the patient on high flow oxygen with a non-rebreather mask. You are not explaining at all what is going on. You start with the SAMPLE…he responds with all the answers but it seems to him like you are not to empathetic to the need that he is very frightened at the moment that he could be having a heart attack and die. You start asking the OPQRST questions and he becomes agitated because you are just going through the motions, not explaining anything to him, not acting like you have any empathy towards him and his condition, and simply seem to him like …show more content…
He winds up in the Emergency room because of chest pain and he cannot breath. He figures it is because of getting too worked up with his latest young lady. When he is asked about Viagra he responds with a quick no. However, his tune changes very quickly when he is informed that the combination of the Viagra and the nitroglycerin he had just been given can cause a fatal reaction. This scene in the movie is a funny one, but the not so funny part of it is that it is very true. When one takes Viagra, the effects of the nitroglycerine is more intense and irreversible hypotension can happen. If the two drugs are taken within the same 24 hour period, the combination is fatal. Your patient dies on the way to the hospital. How could this have been prevented? First and foremost, the patient should have informed the EMT about all of the medication he had been on recently. However, the EMT should have treated this patient like he would have wanted an EMT to deal with a grandmother, mother, sister, brother, child or any other family member. It is not ok to tell your patient that everything will be ok…you do not know that.
Empathy is defined by: The intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.
I recently talked to a majority of my family, friends and acquaintances to brainstorm with me about what I would write about in this class. I got tons of ideas: EMS in the rural setting, complications of childbirth in a pre-hospital setting, dealing with certain diseases that need specialized care, and overall I received a ton of complaints about how someone was treated. So, because I am the type of person who was taught from a young age to treat others the way you want to be treated, I thought I would do my paper on patient “bedside manner”. …show more content…
We go to school, learn the local and national protocols, take some tests and get licensed. Do our patients really think about how much education we have had or what our credentials are? No…instead they open the doors to their homes to us, assume we know what we are doing and let us into their personal space. They let us invade them in ways most would not let close family invade. We learn about the SAMPLE, the OPQRST, contraindications of meds, how to deal with airway, breathing and cardiac problems…but do we truly know how to understand the patient? That is something learned and it is a valuable resource when working in the EMS field. For instance, you get called to a 47 year old male with first time chest pain at 4 a.m. You begin your assessment with an introduction of you and your partner and go through the motions. You check his airway and breathing and respond by placing the patient on high flow oxygen with a non-rebreather mask. You are not explaining at all what is going on. You start with the SAMPLE…he responds with all the answers but it seems to him like you are not to empathetic to the need that he is very frightened at the moment that he could be having a heart attack and die. You start asking the OPQRST questions and he becomes agitated because you are just going through the motions, not explaining anything to him, not acting like you have any empathy towards him and his condition, and simply seem to him like …show more content…
He winds up in the Emergency room because of chest pain and he cannot breath. He figures it is because of getting too worked up with his latest young lady. When he is asked about Viagra he responds with a quick no. However, his tune changes very quickly when he is informed that the combination of the Viagra and the nitroglycerin he had just been given can cause a fatal reaction. This scene in the movie is a funny one, but the not so funny part of it is that it is very true. When one takes Viagra, the effects of the nitroglycerine is more intense and irreversible hypotension can happen. If the two drugs are taken within the same 24 hour period, the combination is fatal. Your patient dies on the way to the hospital. How could this have been prevented? First and foremost, the patient should have informed the EMT about all of the medication he had been on recently. However, the EMT should have treated this patient like he would have wanted an EMT to deal with a grandmother, mother, sister, brother, child or any other family member. It is not ok to tell your patient that everything will be ok…you do not know that.