Another example of not talking to the lawyers.

One of the recurring themes that I notice about EMS and about EMS management in particular is that people regularly avoid asking a lawyer for advice and instead rely on what they think a lawyer would say.  Of course, without the benefit of law school, your legal opinion is about as dangerous as relying on a Facebook post promoting raw cinnamon or vinegar instead of chemotherapy or surgery to treat cancer.

I regularly see these examples of legal sophistry masquerading as “protecting the organization from liability.”  I usually have a knowing chuckle at these instances. But today, one just captured the prize for “what the heck are they thinking?”

I have a good friend who’s a paramedic for an unnamed Scandinavian EMS operation that’s expanding into the USA.  Said friend of mine is also one of the smartest people I’ve ever met with an EMS certification.  He reminds me a lot of myself a few years ago.  He’s smart and eager to improve EMS.  Like the old version of the Ambulance Chaser, though, he’s also impatient and more than willing to tell you that your’e wrong.  When he becomes older, wiser, and more tactful, I have no doubt that he’s going to change EMS.

Recently, he posted a picture of teaching his partner some airway management techniques.  Shortly after that, he was disciplined for “unauthorized training.”

Yep.  Let that sink in.  Unauthorized training.  What kind of corporate nimrod came up with that?  Clearly not someone with a either the benefit of law school or any current knowledge of EMS practice.  When the literature says that EMS providers are terrible at airway management, that airway training is lacking in EMS initial education, and that continuing opprtunities to practice and master airway management are lacking, we have some corporate lackey discplining a medic for maintaining mastery of his profession and for sharing his knowledge with another medic.  Corporate is more worried about the training being authorized than about the medics under their employ receiving any training in airway management at all.  Risk management, indeed.

All I can to those people is that the Ambulance Chaser’s unofficial opinion is that you’re a bunch of Falcking idiots.

Comments

  1. Hahaha, Falking idiots. I see the Big Red Bird is invading your hamlet as well.

    • theambulancechaser says

      They haven’t made it to the Lone Star State, but the bird crapped on the head of a friend of mine in the Pacific Northwest.

  2. Scott Anderson says

    Very well put. I enjoy your writing.

  3. Another example of management clueless about the real issues in medicine. Unfortunately not unusual. Today medicine, as is education, is run by all the wrong people—bean counters and business majors. The people who run EMS are usually far divorced from the realities of medical care. Their only interest and concern is money. When greed rules the field, only the greedy win. We are going to have to teach a new generation of lawyers about malpractice and let them know there is a fertile field there for them. Many improvements in medicine have come as the direct result of lawyers and juries hitting greedy, clueless medical administrators in their pocketbooks. We need more of this. And before you get your nomex in a wad, line paramedics and EMTs are almost never held personally liable for malpractice, simply because they have no money to grab. It is, rightly, the organizations who pay.

  4. John Fekety says

    You forgot to mention the utter lack of commonsense exhibited. As usual, well done Wes.