EMS1 Contributor When a patient’s life is in your hands, you need to know the risk factors, signs and symptoms of PE By Sean Hulsman Pulmonary embolism (PE) is the second leading cause of sudden cardiac arrest in the United States. However, the most prominent symptom of PE is shortness of breath – a symptom…

Rom Duckworth EMS1.com Columnists EMS educators can improve sepsis patient outcomes by ensuring EMTs and paramedics have knowledge appropriate and impactful training Sepsis education, just like education for trauma, STEMI and stroke can improve EMS provider recognition, assessment, alerts and treatment to improve sepsis patient outcomes [1]. Rather than dwell on explanations of complex physiology,…

Kelly Grayson, NRP, CCP EMS1.com Columnists Use capnography to guide oxygenation and ventilation derangements in drowning patients Drowning is a significant public health issue in the United States and worldwide, and represents a frequent need for resuscitation from EMS and emergency department providers. While the frequency of unintentional drowning has decreased over the last generation,…

Tim Nowak, AAS, BS, NRP, CCEMTP, SPO, MPO, CADS EMS1.com Columnists Design your training scenario to include increasingly complicated sepsis symptoms to test EMS providers’ differential diagnosis skills This article was originally posted here on Bound Tree University. Sepsis, or septic shock, can manifest through a number of infection-driven disease processes – and it can…

Watch this video about the mechanism of action, indications and administration routes for prehospital use of ketamine.  After watching read the Ketamine Drug Why article and three reasons to use ketamine for prehospital analgesia.  Share Your Capno Story With Us Do you have a story about how capnography made a difference? Share your story with us and…

Michael Fraley EMS1.com Columnists Assign someone to monitor the patient’s airway visually and with capnography using these five tips Your EMS crew has just sat down for dinner on a peaceful evening when the tones sound for an ATV crash. A rural first responder discovered the scene as he was enjoying the trails himself. He…

Greg Friese, MS, NRP EMS1 Staff Originals Everyone likes new equipment, but before you run to your boss to make your case, ask yourself these questions If you are like me, you walk out of a trade show with an arm full of brochures, a bag full of snacks and candy, and a mental list…

Nathan Stanaway EMS1.com Columnists From the 1500s until today, techniques for placing a tube into the trachea have continuously evolved and will continue to improve in the future If you’ve ever wondered why the little hole near the tip of an endotracheal tube is called the Murphy Eye, or who Macintosh was, or even who…

Daniel Schwester, MICP EMS1.com Columnists Communicating with law enforcement and following these clinical guidelines will help to keep patient safety first and foremost The in-custody deaths of persons who had been administered ketamine for agitation have brought controversy and questions about the use of the drug in EMS. Supervisors and leadership are faced with having…

EMS1.com Columnists How will you care for a teenager who intentionally asphyxiated himself and is now unresponsive with agonal respirations? You are dispatched to a residence for an unresponsive 14-year-old male patient after choking. You arrive to find frantic parents leading you to the basement, where the patient is unresponsive on the floor. He has…