So I was one of the evaluators for a class of paramedics. This was not a class that I had a lot of contact with, because I was gone to grad school during most of their time there. I think that I may have covered three or four lectures for that class, and that is it.
Anyway, for the final, there is a written exam and twelve practical stations. There are stations that evaluate a candidate's knowledge of cardiology, ACLS, and general medicine. Two of the stations are proctored by physicians, and the physician walks you through a medical scenario to see if you know your stuff. One of the students failed one of these physician medicated scenarios, and I went to explain to him that he had failed, and why. Once this is complete, we give the student a chance to try another scenario. A student can fail two stations and retest them. Fail three, or fail the retest, and you fail the entire year of paramedic school. While I was explaining this to the student, he got angry and belligerent, and began yelling at me. I didn't feel like dealing with it, so I told him that he would have to speak with the director of the school.
The next day, I was told to retest him. During the scenario, he stated that he wanted to give Dopamine. Since Dopamine is given as an IV drip, I asked him how to mix and administer the drug. He said that he would add 400 mg of the drug to a 500mL IV bag, and this would give him a concentration of 1600 micrograms per mL. The problem is that this results in a mixture that is only 800 micrograms per mL, meaning that the drug was mixed incorrectly at half strength. When I told him that he failed because he mixed the drug incorrectly, he began yelling at me and told me that it was unfair to give him a problem where he had to do drug dose calculations, and accused me of failing him on purpose.
I pointed out that it was his decision to give that particular drug, and when you decide to give a drug, you should know how to do so. He complained loudly to the other instructors that were there, and said how unfair it was that I treated him like that.
When I left the school last night, there was a note under my windshield wiper that said "You are gonna pay for what you did"
I teach a night class tonight, and I leave after my students at 10 pm tonight. Good thing I am armed, and good thing that the classes I teach are not in a location where I am prohibited from carrying a concealed weapon. It is also good that the school's director knows that I carry a weapon, and has no policy against it.
I've worked with two paramedics with that type of personality. When everything is going well, they are happy, joking, and easy to get along with. But the moment you piss them off, they are shouting, and even becoming physical. The best part is they seem to be similar to cases where cops get away with stuff--they simply transfer to a different agency because the administration doesn't want to deal with the legal hassle of firing someone for making poor decisions.
ReplyDeleteI assume you kept the note. Might be handy.
ReplyDeleteI worked as a medic for 24 years, 3 times as a manager of services.
ReplyDeleteI also worked in the county EMSA and for the state EMS office.
This was in a very large state but I won't way which one.
I received similar incident reports, either verbal or written, from Pmedic instructors. I kept them all.
Speaking as a former manager, I would suggest you forward an incident report to both your county and state EMS agencies detailing only the subjective facts. Trust me, they would appreciate it.
It helps to document abnormal behavior, such as you have listed on this individual, which allows the agencies to properly come to decisions when other complaints come in about an individual.
Obviously, this fellow is of questionable Paramedic standards as there seems to be serious lack of situation resolution skills.
Send the IC's as a for your info. It will be appreciated.
my 2 cents'