Hey, Gary Saffer!  Remember the message about RE: RE: UNIONS?
You said to Tom Patierno on 03 Nov 96  10:25:00...
GS> TP>CN> I heard that a physician was giving talks at EMS conventions that
GS> TP>CN> paramedics are having no good effect at saving lives, and
 
GS> TP>motivating  this man to talk this way.  I can show you where
GS> TP>Electrocardioversion and a  round of drugs have saved quite a few
GS> TP>individuals, and all prehospital.  Who  hires this chooch to talk at
GS> TP>the EMS conventions in the first place?  >:-(
GS> 
GS> This was this DR's opinion, and his only. What he says is that there is 
GS> a lack of hard data to support pre hospital ALS. However, there is also 
GS> a lack of data to say that it doesn't work. It doesn't seem that too 
GS> many people share his opinion. 
 
If advanced prehospital care doesn't have to have such advanced training to 
o
any bit of good, why in the world have haospitals spent so much $$$ getting 
helicoptors with nurses, Dr.s, etc, to respond to calls ?   An entire system 
of individuals are available to render care ASAP and to the extent of the 
level of their training.  
    Jumpin' Jehosaphat!  The VeitNam war demonstrated that more training in
the field resulted in fewer casualties, less morbidity, from potentially 
ife-
threatening wounds.                                                       
    Call me a cynic, but my feeling is that, as more and more HMO's start
putting accountability for $$$ spent on Dr.'s, nurses, and hospitals, they
will typically point to ways to cut the costs of medical care.
 Noticing that the prehospital care givers are the first to have the fingers
pointed at them isn't surprising, but is aggrevating.  Gary, ever notice in 
n
institutional setting that, as cuts start being talked about, everyone starts 
showing how they are indispensible, and how others are not as essential?   I 
think that the good Dr. is reflecting on ways for his (and his colleagues) 
economic survival, and not necessarily on better patient care.
Regards,
Tom Patierno
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