Wordsmith

According to a story in the Huffington Post, the self-proclaimed pitbull with lipstick known more commonly as Sarah Palin has referred to the social networking site Twitter as “that twittering little thing” on Tuesday at a speech in Arkansas. The quote was actually reported towards the end of a story by CBS News about Palin’s speech to Tea Party members:

When she was asked what she believed was the number one threat to America today, several audience members shouted, “Obama!”

Arkansas Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb, who moderated the Q&A session, responded by adding, “Besides Obama.”

Palin then chimed in as many in the crowd laughed.

“See, they said that, I didn’t,” she said. “Just you watch now, too, because somebody will be here with their little Twittering thing, and it’s going to be on the Internet any minute now.“

The Huffington Post considers the knock as a surprise since the ex-governor is heavily involved in Social Media, including on Twitter @SarahPalinUSA and on Facebook which she has previously used to bypass the media.

Personally, I don’t find it surprising at all. I think she is a fraudulent Twitter user, using a staff member or volunteer to actually update her account. A quick glance at her Twitter updates show some oddities that are indicative of her accounts being handled by others:

• Her TweetStats show December as being her most prolific month with 76 Tweets that month… and then a whopping 18 for the month of January, as I’m sure book sales flatlined
• She is averaging 2.6 Tweets per day across her roughly two month career on that Twitter acount
• The VAST majority of updates are coming “from web” as opposed to one of the large number of third party clients or mobile applications

So while Sarah Palin knocks Twitter, it has exposed her as a fraud in its use… and that puts her right back with the politicians of the establishment who are more interested in lining their own pockets then doing the work of the people for the people.

Dear Midwest Ambulance Service,

I am writing this in response to the appearance of your ambulance and staff on the 2/15/10 episode of Monday Night RAW.

First, allow me to congratulate you on the appearance of your crew (both in neat and tidy uniforms) and the cleanliness of your ambulance (including the floor which, from experience, is not an easy thing to keep clean). They were a perfect representation for the industry of professionalism. Having previously worked with the Superstars of the WWE, I am sure they provided a great experience and atmosphere for your employees as they have for myself and my co-workers.

I do however have a gripe, because what would an open letter be without one? I fully understand that the removal of Brett Hart from the limousine (in fact the entire crash itself for that matter) was a staged event. While your employees were undoubtedly under the direction of the WWE producers and medical staff, I think it is important that we accept the responsibility of how we are portrayed on television even while under contract for entertainment purposes.

The fact that Brett was loaded into the back of the ambulance without any safety restraints engaged on the stretcher and then driven off does not send a good message to either the public or your fellow EMS providers. I understand your responders probably felt that to a certain extent they were “under the gun of the clock” by the WWE Producers, but having worked with them first hand I know that while they are indeed time conscious they are also mindful of delivering as authentic an experience to their audience as possible.

How long does it take to fasten a seatbelt? Roughly 1.6 seconds. As a collective we have a responsibility to both provide the highest quality of patient care and to represent that quality to the public accurately. Brett Hart should at least have been strapped in with the safety restraints.

I’d like to thank you for your forthcoming attention to the details that will represent us accurately as the professional and safe healthcare providers we all are.

Keepin’ It Real,

Dave

Most people were surprised that there was no official head of the TSA when there was an attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit last Christmas. The appointment was reportedly being held up by Congress. Last week Errol Southers withdrew from his White House nomination to head up the TSA. So now the White House has to go and find a new nominee.

I don’t know about you, but I am severely frustrated by the government’s lack of urgency in this matter of national security. I mean surely SOMEONE wants the job…

Yeah… I’m all about the monkies today… have a safe week…

Over the course of 15 years I’ve probably done somewhere in the realm of 100-200 cardiac arrests. That really isn’t alot when you consider that it’s at most averaging about 10 a year in the median. I would have to say that out of that, I literally have 13 “pre-hospital” saves, meaning that the patient was found without a pulse and was brought into the ER with a pulse of their own and survived for 24 hours.

Out of those 13, there were 8 of them where we found CPR already in progress. While this is in no way a scientific measure, but merely an observation from my personal experience, it makes me think that we should make CPR mandatory knowledge.

While I may hesitate to make it a requirement for citizenship like the Pledge of Allegiance, at the very least it should be mandatory in high school… perhaps as part of the Physical Education curriculum.

CPR is not rocket science.

Thanks for to Rogue Medic for pointing out this great PSA video from the American Heart Association

I think that I consume news a little bit differently than most others. Besides the usual activities of showering, shaving, and getting dressed, my morning routine includes updating the Podcasts on my iTunes and syncing my iPod. On the drive into work, I “listen” to podcasts of the news shows from the night before. My first “listen” of the day, and the one I tend to be the biggest fan of, is AC360 with Anderson Cooper and his co-anchor Erica Hill.

One of the things that separates CNN from the other professional news networks is their full on embrace of the power of Social Media. As a network they took on Ashton Kutcher to see who would reach a million followers on Twitter first, and although they lost their use of Social Media is prevalent in the majority of their shows. One of the things that AC360 does is a “Live Blog From The Anchor Desk” where I came across this doozy Friday night…

It’s bad enough that most e-mails have become devoid of capitalization and punctuation, but when I see a “journalist” post something like this which is representative of her abilities as a professional I cringe.

Literally.

The shift key is not that hard to hit and her lackadaisical approach to using correct grammar sends the wrong message. Correct grammar and spelling should be used in not only official reports or stories, but in all blog posts and comments as well. Failure to do so is not only lazy but indicates a level of incompetence in monitoring the quality of your own work.

So during the discussion about what’s appropriate on Facebook in the JEMS Connect Forum that I highlighted yesterday, there was this interesting posting:

Our Service Is Dealing With This Issue Now. Our New Policy Reads That You Can Not Identify Yourself As An Employee Nor Have Pictures Of Any Calls, Trucks, Etc…… Our Policy Is For All Online Networks Facebook, Myspace Etc….

Image via CrunchBase

As Far As Management Monitoring Our Public Safety Director Has A Facebook And My Training Officer Has A Myspace So If They See Infractions It Will Be Handled Per Policy, First Offense Verbal Warning, Second Offense Written Warning, Third Offense Can Be Up To Termination.

Really?

There are EMS Agencies that are so afraid of their own Patient Care Providers using Social Networks and creating Social Media that they have to enact a draconian policy such as this and follow it up with Gestapo tactics?

I wonder where they might have gotten this idea from…

Now I can understand parents going overboard with the monitoring… much to the chagrin I’m sure to their son… but how many EMS Agencies are protecting their Responders from The Tramp Named Jenny? For some reason, I think the answer to that question is none.

So EMS Chiefs, CEOs, Directors, Captains, Supervisors… do the right thing by your Responders… develop a Social Media Policy, educate them on the Social Media Do’s and Do Not’s for your agency, and above all remember you are probably funded in one way or another by the tax dollars of those who believe there should be liberty and freedom for all.

Do the right thing for yourself and learn how to use Social Media for your agency.

One of the guys I used to work with sent me the link to this video of a fight in the waiting room of at Brookdale Hospital located in the East New York section of Brooklyn.

Tyler Durden would be proud…

So if these fights are happening before healthcare in America takes a socialist turn with a severely underfunded “public option”… what do you think is going to happen after?

Disclosure: For a brief time I worked the Brookdale Hospital 911 truck

Come
As you are
As you were
As I want you to be
As a friend
As a friend
As a known memory

-Come As You Are, Nirvana 1992

I am, for lack of a better term, a product of the grunge era. I wore flannel, went to my first Lollapalooza in 1992, owned CDs that were considered “imports” from the far away land of Seattle, and I had the Grunge Samurai haircut of a ponytail topknot with a close shave around my head. While I no longer wear flannel, no longer listen to CDs, and haven’t paid for a concert since 1997… there are still two things that remain with me to this day from that era.

The first is the belief that you should always “Come As You Are“, which is a title of the second single off Nirvana’s album Nevermind. As the song implies, be as you are in real life. That should carry over from real life into your online life as well. Come as a friend and be memorable to those you interact with.

Sure we’ve all seen how Facebook Can Cost You Your Job, how free speech has consequences, and how photos can cause lawsuits. While these are things that we can control by using some simple common sense, we shouldn’t let fear of these issues change who we truly are and how we interact with others online.

Be as you are on Social Networks and in creating Social Media as you are in real life.

The second thing that remains with me from those days, as many of you may suspect, is the Grunge Samurai haircut.

Why mess with perfection?

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For the benefit of those of you hiding under rocks or on vacation for the last month, there happens to be a debate going on over bills that are supposed to provide HealthCare Reform, including a Public HealthCare Option. While there are alot of issues regarding this, or to be more specific alot of issues regarding the vagueness of the current bill, there are two things that stand out to me above the fray that I don’t seem to hear anyone talking about.

So I might as well.

The first issue I see is the “incentive” payment plan primarily affecting doctor’s and hospitals. The theory is that if a patient comes in for an illness, is treated, and afterwards does not have complications or issues then the doctor and hospital get paid a set amount. If the patient DOES have complications, the additional cost incurred by the hospital/doctor will NOT be covered. Now while I think it is a good idea to hold hospitals and doctors accountable for positive outcomes, what incentive does the patient have to positive outcome?

Now of course in theory every patient’s incentive should be good health… but what about patients who are told to quit smoking, but don’t. Or patients who are told to lose weight, but don’t. Or patients who are told to stop drinking alcohol, but don’t. Is it fair to hold healthcare providers responsible for patients who choose not to listen to them? At what point does medical advice infringe on a patient’s liberties and freedoms… or for that matter at what point does a non-compliant patient’s action infringe on the liberties and freedoms of the healthcare provider?

This of course brings up another issue… RMAs. If a patient Refuses Medical Aid on the scene of a car accident, but then goes to the doctor the next day, is the public going to have to pay for that doctor’s visit even though the patient initially refused medical aid?

Something to think about. Maybe the government should look at ways to incentivize me as well.

The second issue has to do with the whole saving money through better efficiency. While I’m a big fan of electronic records for patient, I can’t help but wonder how a hospital’s record keeping department feels about it. So I have to wonder, how many jobs will we lose through this process? What is the government going to do for these people who have been made obsolete through efficiency?

I may be entirely off base with my concerns here… and if I am, feel free to tell me…

Recently I’ve been doing alot of interviews for some vacancies I have at work. While there are legitimate employment opportunities available, some people just don’t understand the basics of what a potential employer is looking for in a candidate during an interview.

To be honest, it can really be quite frustrating at times. I’m not even talking about the industry specific things like knowing that you apply suction after inserting the pharangeal tip. I’m talking about candidates who apply to be an EMT but haven’t taken their state test yet because they want “early consideration”, candidates who check off that they can work weekends but can only work on Saturdays between 1600 and 1900, and candidates who will give you the exact same answer using different words to every question you ask them. That last one is a real pet peeve of mine, because it shows someone either as not knowledgeable or worse… listening comprehension challenged.

So here are a few tips on having a successful interview that are not exclusive to just the EMS field:

• Make sure you are actually qualified – If you apply for a job that requires a level of certification make sure that you have that actual certification. Irregardless of your scheduled test dates and whether it be EMT, EMD, or AEMT, if you don’t have the actual certification then you shouldn’t be filling out applications for positions that require them
• Convey changes on your application early – If something has changed on your application, such as your availability to work certain hours or certain days, be sure to tell the interviewer that before the interview. They may be bringing you in specifically for that reason, and if you can’t perform on that
• Show up on time or early – This is really your first test on punctuality… so if you show up late, well that’s going to raise the specter of tardiness as an employee
• Be prepared – Be ready with any certifications, licenses, or other documentation you may need. Also be ready mentally for an oral or written test and physically for a lifting or skills test

And the most important piece of advice I can give you…

• Actually answer the question asked – Listening comprehension is an important aspect for any candidate to have. If you display a lack of it during the interview, then your potential employer really has no reason to consider you for the job. Work the question back into your answer, and don’t be afraid to ask them to repeat it. As an interviewer I’ll penalize you for not answering the question, but will actually give you more points for asking it to be repeated provided you actually do answer it in the end

Following these tips will hopefully put you on the path for a good interview… because a good interview is the first step to a good job…