Year in Review

Thanks for hanging out with me for another year. I put up thirty-eight posts to the main blog on the year, plus putting something onto Facebook three times per week.  You may not have seen all the main site blog posts, so here are some of my favorites.

The most popular posts:

• The Most Important Question was a post about asking yourself the most critical question for an EMT or medic to repeatedly ask themselves: “What else could be going on?”
• My Lucky Depression was my attempt at explaining how depression affects me. It was posted right after a friend of mine killed herself. I miss her.
• More Cops was the story of me irritating firefighters, worsening a crazy, unsafe scene. Again.
• Scoop or Droop illustrates the effects digoxin has on an ECG.
• Non-Invasive Blood Pressures was my attempt at explaining the situations in which I use the NIBP attachment on my monitor. Short answer: Most situations; I like NIBP.

At the bottom end, these were the most… um… overlooked posts of 2015:

• The Porpoise is the story of a memorable patient and how he gave me the dream for my own retirement.
• Learning to Drive is a post about how teaching a trainee to provide prehospital care is pretty similar to teaching a teenager to drive.
• Highway Parking explains how to safely park an ambulance in high-traffic areas.
• My Ears was an ode to my stethoscope – the one piece of equipment that has been with me for 20 years. My ears have been on all the calls I have been on. My ears, then, are salty old street dogs who have seen it all...
• Tale of the Too Loud TV is a quick, funny story about how the priorities of EMS and police occasionally differ.

I also wrote up posts that explained how to perform blind nasotracheal intubation, described a framework for ethical decision making skills, and why I occasionally call emergency ambulances for nonemergency patients.  I had stories about a guy who bought naltrexone instead of OxyContin, a patient with a pile of problems (so many problems), what the hell judicial agents are, being presented with a dead cat, and where I choose to give handoff reports. Go to the blog site and scan the history column on the right side of the page to see all of the posts that have been published.

For next year, I plan on publishing at least forty posts. Some ideas I’m mulling involve tactical EMS, aVR, terminal QRS distortion, and left main occlusions. I may explain how you can palp a blood pressure without touching the patient. I’m even considering writing up more purely medical topics like PTSD, lactate, and Crohn’s disease. We’ll see what the year holds.

What were your favorite posts, and what would you like to see more of? Contact me and let me know.

Happy holidays. See you next year. Stay safe and have a good one.

Happy New Year. Hoping you're part of the problem, not the solution.
Source (CC0 Public Domain)