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Showing posts from December, 2007

Baptism By FIRE.... the early days

Just last week, Hunny and I were discussing our early experiences in EMS. I had shared my experiences with my first "tote" job. Crazy Family Drama EMS. The company is known in the Metro-Atlanta EMS community for their surprising longevity, and the fact that they had had some of the worst contracts ever. Most local "old-heads" got their start there. I guess I fall into that category. The current opinion is if you survived 5+ years at Grady EMS these days you've earned your "old head" badge. When I worked for CFD EMS, their primary money maker contract was with Grady Hospital, to take home all discharges off the floor that were true "bed-bound" stretcher patients: paraplegics, quadriplegics, contractured stroke survivors, amputees, etc. They also did ALL the ER discharges. Sure, there were the true bed-bound patients. But you also did a fair share of providing taxi service for lazy healthy and/or youthful adults... ambulatory folks who refused

NEW JOB....

NEW JOB - Grady Jr. EMS I spent Monday (12-10-07) through Friday (12-14-07) doing the typical classroom orientation stuff. How GJ-EMS got it's start, how it's grown, benefits, training and CEU programs *a lot of CEU's ONLINE - yippie *, Toughbook's and touchpoint PCR software, road safety / CEVO , HIPPA , etc.I was definitely impressed with their "employees are our most valuable asset" concept: meaning that if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. They eat it, breathe it, sleep it, poop it, and maybe even brand it on your ass when you get released from orientation. But it's true. Basically they believe that if they meet (actually, most often exceed) the expectations of how the employees want to be treated, perks, nice equipment , comprehensive training, new (and actually functioning ) technology, etc... that we will be more productive, nicer to colleagues , patients, and the public, less likely to burnout, less likely to climb a tower in Smyrn