Worthy Words

I admit that I’m a sucker for a good quote. Truth be told, medicine is exactly the type of enterprise that needs quotes. It’s a basically noble endeavor that’s nevertheless rife with the sort of frustrations, obstacles, and everyday nonsense that tends to make us forget why we’re doing it.

Quotes help us remember. A few concise, perfect words from people smarter than us — they needn’t be real people, either, because sometimes fiction is more true than fact — can paint a picture that reminds us in a flash how to do this job, why we’re doing it, and to whom it matters.

To that end, we’ve set up a page to collect the best medicine-related quotes we can find (you can find it in the menu above as well). Some are about EMS, some aren’t, but if you’re on the job, I bet many of them will ring true. Take a look and check back when you can; we’ll try to keep adding the good stuff as we come across it.

Glass Houses: Suicide in Both Seats

Of all the skills we’re called upon to wield without adequate training, care for psychiatric complaints tops the list. In particular, it’s a rare shift when you don’t handle a person — whether on the initial emergency response or a subsequent interfacility transfer — who has thought about, or even attempted to commit suicide.

Probably because these patients aren’t very medically exciting and can be challenging to deal with (due to varying degrees of cooperativeness), many of us aren’t big fans. We also tend to have a cynically individualistic sort of streak, which says that deep down, patients are responsible for themselves. If someone wants to be healthy and they get unlucky, we’ll help out. But if they can’t be bothered to try, we can’t be bothered either, and if they’re actively trying to hurt themselves, surely we have better things to do than interfere with natural selection.

But before we throw stones, we should probably understand the disease we’re discussing. Just like you can’t treat CHF without grasping its pathophysiology, properly treating the suicidal patient — or even deciding not to care — demands knowledge before judgment.

Depression itself is hard to grasp from the outside. This easy walkthrough may shed some light, but if you haven’t been there, you probably shouldn’t pretend you understand it. Nevertheless, it’s one of those conditions that invites amateur opinions, because it seems like the sort of thing we all know something about.

Maybe depression is too loosey-goosey; maybe it’s better if we stick to concrete facts, yeah? And there’s nothing more concrete than suicide. Let’s talk about suicide.

Start by reading through this article at the Daily Beast. It’s long, but it’s real good, and you may start to change your mind about a few things by the end.

For instance, in 2010, in the developed world where we have good statistics, suicide killed more people in the prime of their life (ages 15–49) than anything else. Read that again. Of all the terrible insults we study and treat, from gunshots to heart attacks, car crashes to cancer, suicide was more deadly than every single one. Over a hundred thousand suicide deaths that year. Almost a million across all age ranges. Every murder, every war, every natural disaster you read about in 2010 — throw them all together, and they still don’t equal the number of suicides. There were probably even more that weren’t reported, and even that’s just the successful suicides, of course; those that were attempted but didn’t quite succeed make up a much larger group, perhaps twenty-five times larger. (Yes, 25 times.) And there are more and more every year.

When we talk about CPR, we often talk about quality of life. When a 98-year-old bed-bound dementia patient dies, we might ask whether we should jump through hoops to save them; even in the best possible case, they’re not going to return to a very long or very fruitful existence. But when the 20-year-old college student drops dead on the lacrosse court, we want very badly to bring him back, because if we can he might live another 70 wonderful years.

Well, the people committing suicide are the second kind. They’re often middle-aged, middle-class folks who could be happy and live long — if they can get past their illness. But dead people won’t get past anything.

Of course, we see a lot of depressed people, and most of them won’t kill themselves even if they’ve thought about it. Figuring out who’s most at risk of taking that step is a worthwhile goal, and the Daily Beast article describes three risk categories that you may find useful:

Those who feel alone, that they don’t belong anywhere
Those who feel like a burden to others
Those who have the willingness and capacity to go through with self-annihilation

Who feels alone? Everybody, at times. We need connection. Married people kill themselves less often than the unmarried, twins less often than only children, mothers raising small children almost never. Sometimes those who seem to have everything in life may have the weakest connections, which is why they say that money doesn’t equal happiness.

The life-saving power of belonging may help explain why, in America, blacks and Hispanics have long had much lower suicide rates than white people. They are more likely to be lashed together by poverty, and more enduringly tied by the bonds of faith and family. In the last decade, as suicide rates have surged among middle-aged whites, the risk for blacks and Hispanics of the same age has increased less than a point — although they suffer worse health by almost every other measure. There’s an old joke in the black community, a nod to the curious powers of poverty and oppression to keep suicide rates low. It’s simple, really: you can’t die by jumping from a basement window.

When nothing ties you down, when nobody cares what happens to you, what’s stopping you from shuffling off into the abyss? “I’m walking to the bridge,” one note said. “If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.” Did you smile at your last psych patient?

Who’s a burden? Anyone who’s not achieving, contributing, responsible for something or someone. The unemployed, the chronically cared-for, those with debilitating diseases or intractable poverty. We do this job because we like taking care of people, but that means there’s always someone being taken care of, and nobody loves being on that side of the equation. Some people will go to their graves rather than add to the work or worry of those around them. A few will send themselves there.

Finally, who’s actually willing to end their own lives? It takes something special to close the deal, a particular resolve; no living creature’s natural instinct is to die. Even if you have the desire, it’s not easy to pull the trigger. It’s those with the gift or the learned ability to follow through with difficult deeds, the “athletes, doctors, prostitutes, and bulimics . . . All have a history of tamping down the instinct to scream.”

Think about those categories. None of those are particularly insane thoughts to have. All it takes is their juxtaposition, and suddenly, something unthinkable becomes a very real possibility. Honest. It happens hundreds of thousands of times every year.

Suicide in EMS

“Well, what the heck,” you’re thinking. “That’s nice, but I’m not going to fix them, so why do I care? I’ll bring ’em where they’re going and say good luck; God and the doctor can take care of the rest.”

Fair enough. But I have a homework assignment for you.

Find that guy at work. You know the one. His nickname is “Doc” or “Papa.” He’s been doing this for twenty-plus years, since the days when ambulances were dinosaur-drawn wooden wagons. Ask about the other old-timers, the endless sea of faces he’s worked with over the years.

He’ll have good stories. Tons of them. Partners and coworkers and crazy SOBs. Hijinks were had, shenanigans performed, laughs all around.

But then ask what happened to those guys.

Because a lot of the time, they’re not running around on the ambulance anymore. Ol’ Doc is the exception. They’re not semi-retired, spending their afternoons fly-fishing and golfing. They didn’t jump careers to become bankers or meteorologists.

They’re dead. Or maybe in jail. Or shot robbing a 7-11 for $13. Or they were committed to a psych hospital so many times nobody knows what happened to him. Maybe they overdosed. Living on the street. Living who knows where.

And yes, some of them committed suicide.

Seems a little rich to judge your psych patients when, the way the odds go, you’re probably going to be the next one.

I suppose you could argue that EMS was different back then. Russ Reina talks about the time when most “ambulance drivers” were people who couldn’t find a job anywhere else, drifters and ex-cons. Not like now. Now we’re all as well-adjusted as Mr. Rogers. Right?

Yeah, sure.

Let’s be real. A lot of the people doing this job can’t stay employed even in our own dysfunctional field, and would never stand a chance anywhere else. Drug abuse and PTSD are common. And our social support networks often don’t extend past a partner or two.

Do we belong anywhere? Maybe you do in the police or fire service. But those of us who enter private EMS usually don’t last long before being sucked into a loop of working more and more overtime until we no longer have hobbies, no longer spend time with friends, no longer travel or expand our horizons. If we have spouses, significant others, or family, we neglect them. If we don’t have those relationships, we sure as hell don’t develop them from the driver’s seat of an ambulance. The last step — which doesn’t take more than a few years — is when we start to view every one of our patients as a nuisance. Burnout takes away the last string tying us to other people; if patients aren’t worth helping, aren’t hardly people at all, then the circle of humans in our life may become no larger than our uniform belt.

Are we a burden? In many cases, that shoe drops when we find ourselves off the clock. If our life has become the ambulance, what happens when we lose the ambulance? Your company goes belly-up. We piss off the wrong boss and get tossed out on our ass. Or, inevitably, we get injured. Suddenly, the only reason to get out of bed in the morning is gone. Sounds nice at first, but you realize quickly that having nothing to do actually means you’ve got no reason to be alive.

And are we afraid of dying? Who could be less afraid? We spend every day minimizing death, trivializing the human condition, ingraining a culture that teaches we should be able to order nachos after bandaging a burn victim. We drive fast; we laugh at seatbelts. Sometimes we snort cocaine and have sex in ambulances. (No, not you. But you know who.) There’s nothing beyond the pale for an EMT. Including pulling the trigger.

So is suicide a big deal? Yes. Should we try to understand it? Yes. Does it matter for us? Yes.

But more importantly: do we get to judge it? Do we get to pretend we’re above it? Are the kind of people who attempt it so bizarrely pathological that we’re nothing like them?

You can decide. But you only get to say that if you’re willing to say you don’t care about a disease that kills more healthy patients than anything else. Willing to write off hundreds of thousands of people every year.

And willing to say you don’t care that your partner could be next. Or your boss. Or yourself.

Check out The Code Green Campaign for mental health support for EMS. — ed. 1/17/15

The 10 Easiest Ways to Violate HIPAA

Leave paperwork face-up on the dashboard or front seat.
Leave your computer unsecured wherever the hell you please.
Tweet a picture of the badass MVA you just did, with a victim obviously identifiable to anybody who reads the news (“A car struck a tree on Route 421 today, driver Jim Smith was rushed to the hospital…”).
Tell everybody about the celebrity you just transported.
Tell everybody about the coworker you just transported.
Crack jokes and make comments about the patient you just dropped off while in the elevator, or in the public ambulance bay outside — usually while the patient’s family is eavesdropping.
Post a Facebook status about the crazy shooting you ran, sharing intimate details about the patient who was probably the only person shot in your town that day.
Leave paperwork in the truck at end-of-shift.
Let a facesheet (demographics page) escape into the wind as you fruitlessly chase it down the street.
Answering curious questions about the patient’s status or destination from the random person on scene, I’m not sure who that is, probably just the nosy guy who lives downstairs.

The Laws of EMS

One more post about glucometry is pending, but for now, something lighter.

Decades of medical interns have been raised on the Laws of the House of God. The House of God was a cynical and dark look into the world of modern medicine, and its “Laws” were about as uplifting as condensed soup, but they rang true enough that you’ll still hear them quoted in the halls of medicine today (including those of the real-life “House of God,” where I find myself more shifts than not).

In any case, laws come in handy. Although I’m a believer in the nuanced and detailed analysis, as I age and my neurons gradually turn to cotton candy, I increasingly see the value in basic rules of thumb to guide us through the tangled web of life, and especially of this job.

A good law is simple. It’s always true, or almost always, and the exceptions prove the rule. It’s not specific to a certain region or company, but is something you can keep under your hat and carry with you throughout your career. It’s clear and it say something fundamental about the kind of provider you want to be. But most of all, a good law is not just an empty platitude, but rather an actionable guide-post that can answer real questions in real situations. When times are hard or temptations loom, it’ll tell you what to do.

With no further ado, then, here are mine. I believe in them, I follow them, and like good unguent, I wholeheartedly prescribe them for universal application. I am not wise, but whenever I do a good job of faking it, it’s by following these principles.

THE LAWS OF EMS

Help your patient in any way you can.

Be nice to everybody. It’s your job.

If you can’t save their life, make their day a little better.

Protect your partner.

Have a reason for everything you do.

Leave the patient better off than when they met you.

It should get calmer when you show up.

Good habits make doing the right thing easy.

Tomorrow, nothing will remain but your documentation.

Everything’s a bigger deal to the person on the stretcher.

But that’s just me. What laws do you believe in?

Editor’s note: this post was expanded into a feature piece for EMS World Magazine in the March 2014 issue.

Because it’s Cold Out There

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pO2mdVpN20

We rarely think about it. If we did, we’d probably lose our marbles.

But it’s true.

The universe doesn’t care.

We are born, we live for a little while, and eventually, we die. In the duration, we will have hopes and fears, passions, desires, successes and defeats, joy and pain. The whole gamut is out there. And as a rule, the inexorable pull of the world is downward — into darkness, into chaos. Scientists call it entropy. We just call it life.

But it means that at any given moment, if we want to be happy — comfortable, fulfilled, free from suffering — we have to be waging a constant battle. If we ever stop paddling, we start to sink.

There’s a certain point in your youth (maybe this is the moment that you become an adult) when you realize this battle is nobody’s but your own. When you’re a child, your parents agree to fight in your ranks until you can walk and talk and drive a car. But once you step out onto the world stage, the only one wearing your colors is you. As self-centered people, we find this hard to believe; we feel like we’re important players in the grand scheme. But the truth is that although everybody else feels the same way about themselves, they certainly don’t feel the same way about you.

Nobody cares about your problems like you do. Not even remotely close. They’re busy with their own battles, which are just as burdensome to them as yours to you. So we learn that if we want to solve our problems, change our circumstances, or just keep from backsliding in the constant undertow of life, we’re on our own. The tools we bring to the table are the only ones available, and our to-do list has only our name at the top. There is no oversight, unless we have strong religious views; no referee ensures that the dice land fair; and if the game proves too difficult, we don’t get to quit and try another.

Isn’t this horrible?

Of course it’s horrible. What could be more horrible than to be utterly alone in an uncaring universe?

So we try to build ties. From the little twirling piece of driftwood we’re clinging to, we throw out ropes to the other flotsam and jetsam. We bring them close and tie knots in the hope of building a raft that can stay afloat during the next storm. Maybe this way, we think, if I capsize, someone will pull me back in.

This is hard work, though. Because our own problems are bad enough, and to tie ourself to someone else means we’re taking on some of theirs, too. It means when they get hit, it’s our job to try and keep them afloat. That’s a lot of responsibility, and our plate was already full to begin with. (Everybody’s plate is full, no matter how big it may look from the outside.) So at the best, we only make a few really strong ties.

Oh, we might have a lot of weak ones. Folks we know, and who will occasionally drift by to exchange favors or chat. Maybe a group that we’ll cruise with for a while. But make no mistake: they might be floating alongside us, but they haven’t tied any knots in that rope. If you start to founder, the best you can hope for is a little sympathy as they sail on ahead, and maybe toss you a spare life preserver. It’s not their problem.

The ones who really throw in their lot with you — who say that in thick or thin, in sickness or health, they’ll be at your side, fighting to keep you afloat — they’re few and far between. Maybe a little family, one or two close friends. A significant other. That’s all.

What do you think happens when you get older?

If you have the good fortune to live to a very old age, then a lot of things will change. Life is not going to suddenly become easy; if anything, it will become harder. And where are those ties you’ve built?

Dead. Moved away. No longer capable of anything more than clinging to life.

The luckiest among us will make it to the very last pages of life with our partners-in-crime still at our side. The spouse of fifty years, the close and loving family, the lifelong friend. But for most of us, these lifelines are lost over the years, one by one. And eventually, we may have nobody. Nobody to fight for us, to love us, or even to note our passing.

The next time you transport the 80-year-old man with dementia, who never seems happy and complains about everything —

The next time you’re called to the home of the little old lady with toe pain, whose husband died recently after a lifetime spent together —

The next time you pick up the same homeless man from under the bridge, drunk once again —

Try to imagine what it would be like to be truly alone.

Nobody to lean on. Nobody to throw you a rope when you start to founder. Most of all, nobody who gives a damn you exist. Imagine what it would be like to know that you could walk into the sea tomorrow and nobody would even know you’d died — let alone that you’d lived.

We can’t be everything for these people. But one day, hopefully not soon, you might just find that you’ve become one of them. So do what you can, knowing that nobody else is likely to. Knowing that, even when it has little effect, the difference between having somebody to fire a few shots for you, and having nobody — can be all the difference in the world.

Oldest Trick in the Book

I’ve never been to nursing school. But I like to imagine it goes something like this:

On the first day, you walk into class, surrounded by other bright-eyed, eager young students ready to learn the art and science of nursing. Textbooks weigh down your bag, and your pencils are sharp and ready.

Before you stands your instructor, an impressive-looking MSN whose carriage suggests many, many nights spent awake amidst the cool blue lights and quiet beeps of a MICU. As you watch, she strides to the whiteboard and writes in block letters:

Lesson One: The ID Flip

Lesson two is eye-rolling.

Most hospitals, just like most ambulance services, require that clinical staff wear an ID badge at all time. This identifies them by name and role (nurse, doctor, PA, etc.), and often gives them access to secure areas as well.

Long ago, some canny soul discovered that when patients know your name, they can complain about you. If they decide that they don’t like you, whether justified or not, they can call people — like your boss — and unleash angry, entitled, and very personalized tirades about “Sarah Roberts, that mean witch who told me to shut up and stop smoking heroin.”

“Well,” we figure; “if they don’t know our name, they can’t complain.” So although the powers-that-be did insist that badges be worn, we started hanging them in odd places, like from our belt, or inside a pocket. Or covering them with stickers and other things. But the best of all answer of all was elegantly geometric, made especially easy by free-spinning retractable ID clips: simply twist the card so it faces your chest, and the only thing visible is whatever text happens to be printed on the back. Technically, you’re still wearing the thing, and if the boss notices you can just say “whoops, it got twisted,” but nobody can actually read your name, and, ninja-like, you can move through the ward unseen, a bescrubbed ghost.

The nurses have turned this into an art-form, and in some places it’s like finding a four-leafed clover to see an RN with a visible ID (usually I figure they’re new there). But we’ve become awfully fond of this in EMS as well.

People, I realize that the world’s a rough place, that patients can be impossible to please, and that even the best of us need to take steps to ensure we still have a job tomorrow. I do understand this. But there’s a certain point where you have to stop digging trenches, and realize that if you’re giving great care, following procedure, behaving professionally, and generally toeing the line, then you should be willing to stand behind your work. If you’re employed at the kind of place that’s willing to take any complaint as reason to show you the door, I assure you that no amount of ID-flipping will save you. Your days are numbered. Of course, even a good service will eventually start clearing their throat and looking at you pointedly if your personnel file begins to grow particularly fat, but at that point, maybe you really should consider managing your douche coefficient.

Besides, this should all be moot, because when you meet your patient you’re introducing yourself by name anyway. Because that’s just common courtesy when you greet people. And patients are people. Right?

Strive to do the kind of work that allows you the confidence to stand behind it. When someone points at you with forehead veins a-pulsing and demands to know your name so your supervisor can “hear about it,” tell them and tell them proudly. Sometimes, doing the right thing won’t be a defense against trouble — but you can be sure that playing “who, me?” will run out of rope even sooner than that.

Clip your ID somewhere obvious — mine goes on my shoulder — where patients and staff alike can easily see it, and know what to call you and what role you’ll be playing in this show. When I see somebody with a visible ID, I take this as a good sign about their responsibility and willingness to own their work. And those are qualities we need in EMS.

Live from Prospect St: The Reluctant Tumble (conclusion)

Previously part 1 and part 2

Being reluctant to force Joe into an undesired ambulance ride, the crew contacted their supervisor. He arrived, evaluated the patient, agreed with their conclusions, and called Dr. Scrubs to discuss the matter. He was unable to dissuade the doctor from his decision.

The crew and supervisor approached Joe together and informed him of the circumstances; although all parties agreed that he should rightly be able to refuse transport, they felt they had been overruled by a higher authority, and if he would not come voluntarily they would be forced to compel him. Under this duress, Joe finally agreed to be transported, loudly and vocally protesting.

He was taken to his preferred hospital and care was handed off to staff with a full description of the situation. Less than 30 minutes later, another crew was sent back to the hospital to return Joe home; the attending ED physician had deemed his involuntary hold to be invalid and inappropriate, and refused to hold him against his will. No further evaluation was performed.

The encounter was documented extensively and quality improvement measures involving EMS and the base physician are expected.

Discussion

This case was not medically complicated, but it involved some difficult issues of consent and risk. Let’s look at the medicine and then at the wrinkles.

Medical Considerations

We were dispatched for a chief complaint of a fall — a very common mechanism of injury. When evaluating the fall, what should our main concerns be?

First, we should examine the mechanism itself. How far was the fall? In this case, as it often is, the fall was from a standing height, and from a standstill (i.e. not propelled while running, stumbling while breakdancing, etc.). This is often seen as the dividing line for significant versus non-significant falls; in many areas, falls from standing height or greater are considered an indication for spinal immobilization. (Other areas say greater than standing height; 3x standing height or more; or other numbers.) The elderly in particular are considered at higher risk for spinal injury, due to weakened bones and tighter ligamentous connections between vertebrae.

Typically, a blow to the head with loss of consciousness is also considered high risk for spinal injury. This is under the assumption that a blow with enough force to cause LOC may also have enough force to damage the spine. These considerations are all valid, but should only be seen as some of the many factors involved in stratifying risk; they must be considered alongside other elements like the physical assessment. In some systems, you may be forced to immobilize based on mechanism without other considerations. In others, you may be allowed to rule out immobilization based on certain findings, most of which Joe has; for instance, he denies neck or back pain or tenderness, denies peripheral parasthesias (numbness or tingling) or weakness, ambulated well, turns his head, and has no confounding factors like a distracting injury or altered mental status. In any case, the post-fall presentation was so benign that risk seemed low, and given the patient’s overall reluctance it is highly unlikely that he would have consented to a collar and board.

The use of warfarin (trade name Coumadin), on the other hand, does significantly increase the risk of intracranial hemorrhage (ICH), especially after blunt trauma to the head. Although again, Joe’s assessment was very reassuring — normal vitals, no complaints, and a baseline neurological status — it is very possible for ICH to have a delayed onset of presentation. The best example of this is the subdural hematoma, where cases of moderate severity sometimes take hours or days to develop, due to the venous rather than arterial source of bleeding. This delay is particularly common in the elderly, where (possibly due to shrinking of the gray matter, which leaves additional room for blood to collect before pressure begins compressing the brain) a classic scenario is the fall with a blow to the head, no complaints for hours afterward, and then sudden deterioration. Some sources state that 60% of geriatric fall patients who experience LOC from a blow to the head will eventually die as a result. Since in this case, we were delayed on scene for quite some time, there would be value in ongoing and repeated assessments of symptoms, neurological status, and vital signs while we waited around.

The patient’s pupils were unusual in appearance, which can be an indicator of brain herniation; however, this syndrome typically presents with one very large and round pupil. An irregularly shaped pupil as we saw here is more indicative of a structural defect, the most common of which is probably cataract surgery, which can leave the pupil off-round.

An incomplete medical history is common in scene calls involving the elderly. However, many do carry med lists, and in most cases you can reconstruct the majority of the patient’s diagnoses based on their medications. In this case, we found digoxin (or digitalis), which is almost always used to control atrial fibrillation; this is consistent with the patient’s irregular pulse, and with the warfarin, which helps prevent A-fib induced clots. Metformin (Glucophage) is an antidiabetic that helps control glucose levels. Citalopram (Celexa) is a common antidepressant of the SSRI type. Advair (fluticasone and salmeterol) is a preventative asthma/COPD inhaler combining a steroid with a long-acting beta agonist; it is used regularly to minimize flare-ups and is not a rescue inhaler. Omeprazole (Prilosec) is used for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), aka heartburn. Ibuprofen is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) used for pain relief and reduction of inflammation.

As VinceD noted in the comments, one essential question in any fall — and indeed in almost any traumatic event — is what caused it. Here we have a somewhat vague account which suggests a mechanical fall, i.e. tripping or loss of balance; this is not necessarily benign, as a history of repeated mechanical falls suggests deteriorating coordination or strength, but it is usually not indicative of an acute medical problem. However, many elderly patients (and some of the younger ones, too) will attribute any fall to tripping, so this claim should be taken with a grain of salt. It helps to have a witness to the event, as we do here, although witnesses are not always reliable either. In any case, what we want to know is: what happened just before the fall? Was the patient simply walking and tripped on a rug? Did he have seizure-like activity? Was he standing normally when he suddenly lost muscle tone and collapsed? Did he complain of feeling faint or dizzy? Was he exerting himself or straining on the toilet? Things happen for a reason.

Ethical and Legal Considerations

The bigger question is whether it’s okay for Joe to refuse transportation.

This is an odd question, because ordinarily we assume that people are free to go where they want, and calling 911 (or having it called for them) does not surrender this right. However, there is an attitude among those with a duty to act, such as healthcare providers and public safety officers, that individuals who are not cognitively able to understand their situation and make decisions in their best interest need to be protected from their own impaired judgment. This is equivalent to taking your friend’s keys so he won’t drive drunk, under the assumption that he wouldn’t want to drive drunk were he making sensible decisions. The legal term is implied consent, the same principle by which we transport children, drunks, and unconscious people.

How do we know if somebody is unable to make their own decisions? There is not an obvious line. For many providers, their rule of thumb is the old “A&Ox4”: if someone knows who they are, where they are, when it is, and what’s going on, then they are alert and oriented and capable of making decisions. Of course, this is only one piece of the mental puzzle. Social workers, psychiatrists, and other specialists have a full battery of tests that can help further reveal cognitive capacity. Can you perform these in the field? It’s probably more than you’re likely to do, although you might perform something simple like the MMSE. But some basic questions that highlight the patient’s judgment can help supplement your routine assessment — questions like, “Suppose you were at the mall when you started to smell smoke and heard the fire alarm. What would you do?” where any rational response is acceptable.

It’s important for the patient to be able to demonstrate that they understand what’s going on. Even someone with ordinary mental competence — unless they’re a fellow knowledgable healthcare professional — needs to be informed (to the best ability of the provider) of the possible risks and consequences of refusing care. In this case, it would involve giving them some description of the above possibilities (spinal fracture, head bleed, etc.), and ideally having the patient then relate them back to you, demonstrating good comprehension of those facts. The base physician’s view that Joe hadn’t fully demonstrated this understanding was a key part of his decision that he needed to be transported against his will.

Other important points are to ensure that the patient knows that refusal doesn’t preclude future care (“if you change your mind, you can always call back”); and that the ability of the providers to evaluate the patient on scene is at best limited. Any implication that you know what’s really happening to the patient or can definitively rule in or rule out any medical problem is unwise and legally risky. In fact, even suggesting possibilities or probabilities can be problematic if you’re wrong; on the other hand, failing to do so can leave them uninformed, so this can be a Catch 22. Your best bet is to outline some basic possibilities, carefully inform them of the limits of your training and resources, and be smart enough that you generally know what you’re talking about in the first place.

One complication in this case is the presence of someone who claims to be Joe’s health care proxy. A proxy (closely linked to the idea of a durable power of attorney) is a person whom, while of sound mind, you designate to make decisions for you if at a later time you are not of sound mind. Crucially, if you are still capable of decision-making, a proxy does not have the ability to override you; their role is to act on your behalf when you cannot. In other words, the decision of Joe’s proxy is only relevant if we do find (or in some areas, if an authority such as a judge has decided) that he’s incompetent to refuse or consent to treatment; thus, her presence does not necessarily alter the basic dilemma.

In this case, the physician’s attitude was that the problem was primarily medical: does the patient need emergency department evaluation to rule out dangerous processes? Medically, he does. However, the first question actually needs to be: Is the patient capable of evaluating risk and making decisions in his own best interest? If he is, then he is technically “allowed” to decide whatever he wants. Even a clearly dying man can refuse medical care based on religious views, personal preference, or any reason whatsoever (although barring a proxy or advanced directive, once he’s unconscious he can usually be treated under implied consent). This is different from the person who actively tries to take his own life; for philosophical reasons we view this as different from passively allowing oneself to die for lack of medical treatment. We prevent people from committing suicide but allow them to refuse medical care.

Realistically, although this fundamental right does not change, it’s fair to consider the surrounding medical circumstances to help decide how pressing and high-risk the matter is. In this case the doctor clearly felt that the risk was so high that it required going to extraordinary lengths, including overruling the patient’s own decisions and potentially even harming him, to ensure that a dangerous situation wasn’t “missed” — in short, that the ends justified the means. Dr. House is famous for this approach.

Legally, in most areas EMS providers are seen as operating under the bailiwick and legal authority of their medical director, and online medical control is an extension of this authority. In other words, within reason we are bound by the orders of medical control. The details of this relationship vary, and are not always fully explored. For an example, consider this true story from 1997 in New Jersey:

A North Bergen dual-medic crew is dispatched to a pregnant, full term female in cardiac arrest. Downtime is unknown, and they work the code for a number of minutes without response. Determining that the mother is likely unsalvageable, and concerned for the health of the fetus, they contact medical control. After a “joint decision” the base physician verbally talks them through performing an emergency C-section on scene. They deliver and successfully resuscitate the fetus, and both patients are transported. The mother is declared dead soon afterwards, but the infant lives for a number of days before dying in the hospital. In the aftermath, the paramedics are cited for violating their scope of practice, and their licenses to practice are revoked in the state of New Jersey. The physician is forced to undergo remediation training to maintain his medical control privileges.

Is the moral that acting in the patient’s best interest is not always a defense against liability? Maybe. Is the moral that medical control cannot authorize you to perform otherwise illegal acts? Maybe. Is the moral that we should protect ourselves before the patient? I don’t know about that, but it’s something to think about. In this case, the course for Joe that seems most ethical to me — allowing the patient to make his own decisions — also lets us avoid potential liability for battering and kidnapping. However, it does force us to refuse a direct order from medical control. Invoking our supervisor gives us a bigger boat either way, and would be a big help to protect us from trouble coming from our employer, one of the most likely sources. It’s also true that, while we may have believed that Joe was competent, he is at least somewhat diminished, so we’re less than completely confident. Nobody wants to put themselves on the line by taking a stand, only to be proven wrong.

Fortunately in this case we were able to avoid getting violent at all, but it was a near thing. If it did prove necessary, it should have been done with ample manpower and many hands; in some areas chemical sedation by paramedics may also be authorized. And I would certainly not recommend acting without the doctor’s signature on a legal document.

With everything viewed in retrospect, the situation would have been much more easily resolved had the doctor not been involved in the process. At the same time, however, if a simple refusal had been accepted, and CQI later went over the call — especially if Joe experienced a bad outcome — the crew would have been in a difficult place.

No matter what, such a situation is highly unusual, flush with liability, and should be thoroughly documented in all respects.

Live from Prospect St: The Reluctant Tumble (part 2)

You kneel beside Joe and ask, “So, would you like to go to the hospital?”

“No!” he vociferously replies — a theme that will be repeated often over the next few minutes.

You explain the risks — that given his anticoagulation (Coumadin), and given that he struck his head and seemingly lost consciousness, there is a non-trivial possibility of bleeding into or around his brain. That although he feels well now, it’s not impossible for such a problem to develop insidiously and not manifest with symptoms until it’s too late. That you can take him to the hospital of his choice, in total comfort, he can receive some quick tests, and if nothing is wrong he’ll be back home before he knows it.

Joe wants to hear none of this. He just came out of the hospital, enjoyed it not at all, and that was just the latest episode in a long series of hospitalizations. “They ruined my hip” on one occasion, he opines, and he’s already been fooled before by “home before he knows it.” No sir; he’s not going anywhere.

You try, your partner tries, the neighbors try, the proxy tries. No way, no how.

Well, okay. But this is not the sort of incident to just brush aside, and you’re well aware of the risk inherent to patients refusing transport, particularly in a risky circumstances like this. So you pick up your phone and hit your hotkey for medical control.

“Needletown Hospital; this is Dr. Scrubs. How can I help you?”

“Hi doc, this is Maverick from Poketown BLS 48. We’re on scene with a high risk refusal.”

You fill him in with the story. He asks a couple questions, then requests to speak with Joe, and finally talks to the proxy for a few minutes. When the phone gets back to you, Dr. Scrubs informs you that he really thinks Joe needs to go.

Well, okay. You dive back in, bolstered with a physician’s opinion, and attempt to get Joe on board the hospital train. He’s not having it. The whole entourage keeps hammering away at him, but he’s simply not budging.

You call back Dr. Scrubs, bringing him up to speed. “We’re making no headway here. He just doesn’t want to go.”

He asks to speak to Joe, and the sounds of his best MD magic come wafting over the speaker, but Joe just has less and less polite things to say, until finally he comes out with, “You’ll have to handcuff me before I’m going anywhere! And just go ahead and try it!” He hangs up on the doctor.

You call back. “I gotta tell you, doc, I don’t see us convincing this guy. If you tell me that we must take him, then I’ll take him, but I think we’d have to do violence to him and start a battle royale here. Is that what you want?”

Dr. Scrubs replies, “Well, I think he needs to be seen, and it sounds like his proxy does too. I’d like to hear your opinion.”

You pause, then carefully say, “I do not think that it would be inappropriate to leave him, although obviously it would be preferable if he came in. I don’t know that I’d make the same decision, but I might, and I don’t see the situation as so high-risk as to justify anything really extreme.”

“Head injury, on Coumadin, loss of consciousness, you don’t think he needs to be seen?”

“We obviously can’t clear him here. But he’s stone normal by our assessment from every angle, and he’s not going to be left alone.”

“Well, I don’t think that’s a great idea. And he wasn’t really able to logically explain to me the risks of his decision. Anyway, his proxy agrees, so I’m not sure if I see the problem.”

“Doc, the problem is that although he does have someone here who says she’s his health care proxy, by our assessment he is at this time totally oriented, competent, and exercising sound judgment. So I’m not really comfortable kidnapping him, unless you want to sign a Section [your state’s involuntary mental health process, for those who are a danger to themselves or others].”

“Sure, I’ll do that. I can fax it to your dispatch and to the receiving hospital.”

“So you want us to tackle him?”

“Do what you have to do.”

You hang up the phone and look around. Police have left the scene, but could be easily recalled. Joe sits before you, a 79-year-old in fair condition, but no Evander Holyfield.

What do you do?

What are the legal considerations?

What are the ethical considerations?

Acceptable Risk

Following up on our previous post where we discussed patient refusals, it behooves us to say a few things about risk.

The culture of “everyone goes to the ED” is not writ in stone, and in some places, efforts are underway to expand it into a more sophisticated system. For instance, some patients might be transported directly to detox programs, homeless shelters, urgent care facilities, or psych treatment. Some, of course, don’t need to be transported at all, and can stay home, perhaps with instructions to follow up with their PCP. A few areas are experimenting with, or at least moving towards, the concept of an “Advanced Practice Paramedic” or “Advanced Paramedic Practitioner” who could sensibly and intelligently perform this assessment and triage, determining whether patients need immediate definitive care, or (in essence) “clearing” them of acute high-risk pathologies. Ideas like this may prove central to solving the many problems of healthcare in general and EMS in particular, such as ED overcrowding and the inefficient use of available resources.

However, just like the issue of patient refusals, to even discuss the possibility of such a system requires a fundamental shift in our thinking. At the moment, the approach is, “Try to recognize and treat Sick People — but if you don’t, that’s okay, because they’ll recognize them at the hospital.” Obviously, this practice is based firmly on the presumption that most or all of our patients do end up being evaluated in a full-fledged emergency department. Even the very notion that a patient can refuse to be transported ends up as a grudging allowance — we reluctantly acknowledge that we can’t actually kidnap people, but we still make them jump through hoops to make it entirely clear that we wanted them to go all along.

What if we started to accept that some of these patients don’t need an emergency room? Realistically, and retrospectively, it’s obvious that many of them don’t. Other destinations are more appropriate, and in some cases, no transport at all is necessary. But in order to make decisions like that, we need to be able to accept the assessment, clinical decision-making, and risk stratification of our field providers.

It goes without saying that instituting such a practice would require additional training, and providers (such as this mythical APP) practicing at a higher level than our current EMTs and medics. But it’s bigger than that. We have to be willing to let go of the safety net of everyone filtering through the ED. We have to be willing to accept the field workup as final — or at least, good enough that no further evaluation is immediately needed.

Closely wedded with the prehospital culture that treats patient refusals as bogeymen is the in-hospital culture that says every patient needs a comprehensive workup to rule out every possible killer. It doesn’t matter if the odds are 1,000,000 to 1 that the problem is benign rather than a massive MI or hidden PE; that 1/1,000,000 chance of missing the Badness is still unacceptable, so the patient gets the works.

We have the mindset that any miss is one miss too many.

This costs a lot of money. It puts patients through a lot of hell. But most of all, if we’re going to imagine a world where not every patient ends up even going to the emergency department, we have to accept a world where the ones who don’t will not receive that exhaustive workup.

Certainly, this triage process be handled sensibly, and conservatively, because we’re here to help people, not let them die at reasonable rates. So where do we draw the line? Is one miss in a thousand acceptable? One in a million? One in a billion?

We can draw the line wherever we want, but no matter where, there’s going to be a qualitative difference between a reasonable risk and “we did everything.” Because eventually, we’re going to miss one. A well-trained and conscientious clinician is going to assess a patient in their home, and appropriately conclude that their complaint is not dangerous, and that patient is going to die.

Because it happens — because flukes are inevitable. If we throw the kitchen sink at them, and we still lose, then at least we can hold ourselves blameless. But if we take a more reasonable approach, then we have to accept in advance that occasionally, the chips will fall against us. And that has to be okay.

The prevailing belief today is that anytime something goes wrong, something was done wrong. Adverse outcomes are an indicator of error, either an individual error or a flaw in policy or protocol. If I follow our procedures to the letter, and a patient slips through the cracks, it means we need to change the procedure.

Can we get to the point where we understand that if a situation is correctly evaluated, and the risks are correctly balanced, and we simply happen to get unlucky, that the decision was still right? Where we can stop spending ever-increasing amounts of time and money in the pursuit of ever-more-infinitesimal risk?

I don’t know. But if we can’t, then we’re never going to be able to solve some of these problems. Because perfection doesn’t exist, and chasing it is a good way to get very tired.

But it’s Just a Broken Nail!

One of the most common topics of debate in this business is something that should be simple. When is it okay for a patient to refuse transport to the hospital?

On the face of it this is a strange dilemma. When is it “okay”? What does that even mean? When is it okay to have Milano cookies and a bottle of Scotch for dinner? I don’t know. Leave me alone.

The chain of reasoning goes something like this. People call 911 because they have problems, and they don’t know how bad those problems are. By and large, we — the EMTs and paramedics on the ambulance — don’t know either. We don’t have the training or the tools to truly rule out major problems. So the only safe thing is to take the patient to the hospital. There, tall men with white coats, eight years of medical training, large expensive machines, and extensive liability insurance can decide if the patient is dying or not.

Okay. In some ways, that makes sense.

In other ways, it’s absurd. We all experience symptoms or incur injuries from time to time, and for the most part, we do not feel the need to visit the hospital to rule out deadly causes. Although it’s always a remote possibility that something is horribly wrong, in most cases it’s extremely unlikely, and it’s senseless to make an emergency out of every ache or sniffle. As we recently discussed, although it is possible to be very sick without looking like it, it is uncommon. If I woke up today with a minor headache, I wouldn’t want to spend hours of my time and hundreds of dollars at the emergency room “just in case.” So why does that suddenly become a reasonable course of action just because an EMS crew is standing in front of me?

There’s one good answer to this, which is that normally, I wouldn’t call 911 for a headache. So if there’s an ambulance here, it already means that for some reason, I had some special concern about this episode. Perhaps it was unusually bad, or prolonged, or I have medical history which makes me worried about what a headache might entail. Alternately, perhaps a friend or family member called on my behalf, but even then, presumably it’s because they had some reason to be worried.

This is all true. People who call for an ambulance are self-selected to be a higher-risk group than the general population. The headache patient who does dial 911 is more likely to be sick than the headache patient who doesn’t.

However, this isn’t always the case, and even when it is, it isn’t always significant. Some patients, or friends and family of patients, have a very low threshold for concern. Sometimes people misinterpret warning signs. Sometimes things just happen. Consider the hundreds of calls we take each year for minor MVCs. Someone dents their fender in traffic, a concerned passerby calls 911, and we show up to evaluate the occupants. There are no noteworthy injuries, and it wasn’t even the people involved who called for us. Is there a chance they have head bleeds, spinal fractures, pulmonary contusions? There’s always a chance. But do they need to go to the hospital? Or, put another way: they didn’t plan on going to the hospital before we arrived. We performed our medical assessment and found nothing alarming. Does the simple fact that we’re here mean there’s any better reason for them to go to the hospital than before we arrived?

Obviously, the answer is no. But we still tend to default to transporting them.

A cynic might suggest that this is because in most areas, ambulance providers can only bill for transports, not for refusals. In fairness, I don’t think this is usually the main reason.

A bigger reason is liability. There is a real concern on the part of providers, and on the part of the services employing us, that anytime we fail to transport a patient to definitive care, we might be “missing” something bad. As a result, they might later sue us for missing this. Would they have a case? Maybe, maybe not; it would depend on whether we followed the standard of care, and whether we implied to them that we “knew” they were okay with any greater certainty than we truly had. That’s the underlying issue, after all. It’s up to the patient whether they want to go, but we are medical professionals, with impressive uniforms and stethoscopes around our necks, and patients are therefore inclined to think that we know things they don’t. They’re inclined to do what we recommend. But even if we think they’re okay, we don’t know they’re okay, so our “recommendation” is usually to see the doctor, because that’s the only truly “safe” choice from our point of view.

Fair enough. But there’s a small problem with this. We’re lying.

Or at least deceiving. We are trained to assess patients, look for abnormalities, and identify findings that point to the possibility of injury or pathology. If we perform this task, and find nothing alarming or even suspicious, we are going to be thinking, “they’re probably okay. I’m not worried.” Why, then, do we turn to the patient and say, “You should really go to the hospital. I’m worried.”? One major national ambulance company has a policy that you should never ask, “Do you want to go to the hospital?” as it implies a choice — but instead, “Which hospital do you want to go to?” Railroading at its finest.

Certainly, it would be just as misleading to tell a patient, “You’re definitely okay.” We don’t know that, because as we already agreed, we lack the training and resources to diagnose anything for sure. But we do have enough tools to make medical decisions, which we do all the time — what’s the best transport destination? which medication is indicated? — and here, too, we can make an analysis of the risk factors. It’s not the same analysis that would be made by a team of doctors with a hospital at their backs, but as long as we don’t pretend that it is, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Think of it this way. If you were in the patient’s situation, would you want to go to the hospital?

Bear in mind that this isn’t a small thing. Depending on your circumstances, this may involve missing work (even losing a job), arrangements needing to be made for babysitting, housesitting, or pet care, cars retrieved, plans cancelled, and oh yes — a bill ranging from a few dollars to many thousands. Can’t pay that? Now your credit is on the line. You can also look forward to hours of sitting on a series of stretchers, wheelchairs, and beds, while busy people wearing scrubs stick sharp things into your flesh, capture your bodily excreta in plastic cups, and ask you an endless series of the same questions over and over and over. You will miss sleep, get behind on projects or errands, and in the end you will have to find a way to get yourself home and clean up from all this chaos. Possibly with a new infection that you picked up in the waiting room.

If we are responsible, we should view transportation to the hospital as a medical intervention in the same category as medications, invasive procedures, and diagnostic tests. It has certain indications and benefits, but also certain risks and harms associated with it, and we should consider both sides in balance before making a recommendation on the best choice. Certainly, that decision will have to be made by the patient, not by us, because it’s the patient who is undergoing these risks and benefits, so it’s they who get to decide how to weigh them. But they also don’t have the medical understanding of the situation that we do. So that’s our job: to transmit to them what we’ve found in our assessment of their complaint. The risk factors, the positive or negative findings on their physical, any alarming vital signs, and the salient features of their history. In many cases, this process is why they called us — because although they’re experiencing something abnormal, they don’t know if they should be worried or not. We won’t have all the answers, but we can give them more information than they had before, and they can use that information to better inform their decision on whether to seek further care. (Remember, this might include scheduling an appointment with their PCP, visiting an urgent care clinic, getting a ride to the ED or driving themselves, and of course the old “wait-and-see” approach. Even when more care is needed, the ambulance isn’t the only answer.)

For the reasons of liability, and policy, and the general fear-mongering attitude that has swept over the healthcare industry in recent years, this is a very difficult line to walk, and in many cases to preserve your job and license you may need to err on the side of “encouraging” a patient to be transported. However, I find it ethically troubling when we mindlessly push everyone towards the ED, no matter what common sense or their medical situation tell us. When we visit someone with a complaint that we’d ignore in ourselves, our partner, or our mother, and convince them to climb into the ambulance anyway, whose best interest are we looking out for?

Are we hurting the patient to help ourselves?

Are we okay with that?

Tag: ethics