12/11/2023
Why Are We Here?
I had an interesting conversation during one of my training classes. One of the students, who is a full-time firefighter, told me about the following incident.
The call was for a cardiac arrest. The Fire Service was on-scene first and initiated CPR and the AED. Paramedics arrived shortly after the fire service. According to the firefighter, the Advanced Care Paramedic on the call was less than pleasant. Ok, fair enough; not everyone is bright and smiley, and there are rude people in every profession.
As the call was progressing the ACP looked over and told the firefighter doing compressions that they were not pushing deep enough. The firefighter started pushing deeper but also was going faster. The ACP told the firefighter that they were going too fast and to slow down. At this point, the firefighter threw their hands in the air and said, “Fine, you do the F__ing compressions.”
This bothers me on many levels.
1. If, indeed, the ACP was unprofessional at any time, that is not acceptable, but the middle of a call is not the time to confront them.
2. The firefighter throwing up their hands and stopping compressions is also very concerning. We know that to have any chance of a successful resuscitation, we need excellent chest compressions to keep blood flowing. Stopping chest compressions is stopping critical patient care.
3. The optics of this in front of family or other allied agencies is awful.
If there are problems on a call, remember that the patient is our first priority. Everything else is secondary. The senior paramedic is the medical authority on the scene, and ensuring CPR is done correctly is part of their job.
Poor CPR = Poor Outcome for the patient.
Always remember Why We Are Here