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Wed Oct 11 17:12:26 BST 2006

Beat me to it Rick

Bill Bromberg

First off, my question to you addressed the "legal" tone of your
perceived "duty". I was not questioning your moral or ethical beliefs.
Secondly to assume that I do not stop and help is completely out of
line. I am an RN and Licensed Paramedic in the state of Texas. In the
13
years that I have been involved in these lines of work, I have stopped
and assisted on numerous scenes, regardless of my mode of dress,
proximity to dinner or length of my day. I have stopped and assisted
on
scenes in many areas of Texas, at least twice in New Mexico and  three
times in Arizona. For five years I was First Responder Captain of a
volunteer fire department in a rural area of the Hill Country and
responded to calls close to 24/7/365. I have left in the middle of or
missed altogether, family gatherings during holidays and special
occasions. In fact my daughter was 5 before I was present for an
entire
birthday party all due to my "faulty" sense of duty that you are so
sure
I have.
I too have been on scenes and had to deal with well meaning off-duty
physicians, nurses, pharmacists and Eagle Scouts. For the most part
(except those with EMS training) they are a pain in the butt, because
they do not understand the nature of field interventions and believe
that they should direct care (I once had a Pediatric Oncologist,
demand
that I approach a vehicle that had turned on it's side and was not yet
secured by the FD and put a c-collar on the driver). Duty bound or
not,
if you come across any scene that I am in charge of you will be
relegated to the audience, unless you are prepared to assume all
further
patient care and liability for the patient. And that my friend, is at
the direction of my Medical Director, an MD with EMS training, who
understands just how out of your element you are in the field. Ask
your
EMS colleagues how they feel about and deal with physicians on their
scenes. Every EMS service will have a protocol for dealing with that
situation and I think you will find that they are not as impressed
with
having you on scene as you are with being on scene.  
You might also want to do some research on Good Samaritan Laws, they
do
not automatically protect licensed professionals who offer off-duty
care. Like it or not we are held to a higher standard.
Respectfully,
Rick

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