I know it's been a while guys. I just wrote this for a friend who wants to go to criical care to give him some ideas. It is by no means complete, I thought you all could expand on it for me.
Critical care is not merely vent settings, balloon pumps and lab values. It is a deeper understanding of what we already do. Medicine is an ever changing field with great advances being made all the time. How often do you pick up patients with new unfamiliar medications or medical devices you have never seen? How do we know what to do with them when they are in extremis? How do we know our normal course of action will be sufficient or if it will do more harm than good? The answer is that we further our education to become more well rounded providers that have a better understanding of how the body works, how certain disease processes effect us and how medications work. Every city in this region runs mutual aid into the surrounding areas. Do we know all of the special needs patients in these other cities? When the weather is bad and the helo isn't flying there are times when we run critical ground transports to other facilities. How many street medics know how to manage multiple drips when there is no nurse to go with you on the run? How do they handle chest tubes and central venous access? How many medics can manage a propofol drip? Do they know how it works and what to watch for? EMS is diverse, we walk not only into patients homes but into doctors offices, military clinics, shipboard clinics, and a multitude of other places. They call and we go, it doesn't matter where they are. We as providers should be able to handle anything that we walk into with more than a very basic understanding. We may accept a patient who has had treatment started by a doctor and we should know what that treatment does and what else we can do for this patient. To have medics that are critical care certified is not only an asset to your department on the street it is an asset to your training division. These medics can put together classes to help the other field providers improve their knowledge base thereby improving the quality of prehospital care and patient outcome. Patient care and patient outcome are really what we are all here for, and critical care does nothing but improve on an already strong system.
Critical care is not merely vent settings, balloon pumps and lab values. It is a deeper understanding of what we already do. Medicine is an ever changing field with great advances being made all the time. How often do you pick up patients with new unfamiliar medications or medical devices you have never seen? How do we know what to do with them when they are in extremis? How do we know our normal course of action will be sufficient or if it will do more harm than good? The answer is that we further our education to become more well rounded providers that have a better understanding of how the body works, how certain disease processes effect us and how medications work. Every city in this region runs mutual aid into the surrounding areas. Do we know all of the special needs patients in these other cities? When the weather is bad and the helo isn't flying there are times when we run critical ground transports to other facilities. How many street medics know how to manage multiple drips when there is no nurse to go with you on the run? How do they handle chest tubes and central venous access? How many medics can manage a propofol drip? Do they know how it works and what to watch for? EMS is diverse, we walk not only into patients homes but into doctors offices, military clinics, shipboard clinics, and a multitude of other places. They call and we go, it doesn't matter where they are. We as providers should be able to handle anything that we walk into with more than a very basic understanding. We may accept a patient who has had treatment started by a doctor and we should know what that treatment does and what else we can do for this patient. To have medics that are critical care certified is not only an asset to your department on the street it is an asset to your training division. These medics can put together classes to help the other field providers improve their knowledge base thereby improving the quality of prehospital care and patient outcome. Patient care and patient outcome are really what we are all here for, and critical care does nothing but improve on an already strong system.