Article

Letters

June 2009 JEMS Vol. 34 No. 6
2009 Jun 1

Polarizing Position
Thank you for your article on the Trendelenburg position! ("The Myth of the Trendelenburg Position," jems.com/wesley.) I was given a lip lashing as a nurse for not allowing a patient to be placed in this dangerous position and scolded that my train of thought was unwise. I’m a medic through and through, but primum est non nocere !
Joe Kubitschek, RN
Colorado Sprints, Colorado

Dr. Wesley’s view on this practice should be stated as an opinion. I transport hypotensive patients very frequently who simply fail an orthostatic test and feel 100% better after Trendelenburg alone. It’s minimally invasive and offers patients symptom relief until definitive care. Of course, this is barring other medical issues, such as fluid in the lungs. Sometimes, the best source of info is obtained from the field in real settings, not the lab. It’s 150 years old because it works!
Rich Walker, Firefighter/Paramedic
Miami

CSI: EMS
This is by far the best article I have read in a long, long time ("Don’t Be a Minimizer," March JEMS ). Thank you for putting into writing what many of us in QA departments preach every single day.

We in EMS often discount what some of our patients are telling us, and it doesn’t do them (or our careers) any good. It’s so important for those providers who run in a high-volume system, with many patients using EMS and the ED as primary care, to keep the highest index of suspicion possible. We should be a detective on every call; what kind of show would CSI: Miami be if Horatio only eyeballed the evidence and didn’t run every test he could? "Ambulance drivers" discount patients’ complaints; let’s be medical professionals and do what this article lays out. This article should be posted on every QA board in every station.
The QA Kid

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