Dearie me...

So the other day while I working I heard one of my colleagues who is younger than me refer to her elderly patient as "dear"; as in "It's OK dear, we're just going to move you onto this other bed now." I have HUGE HUGE HUGE issues with this, and I'm going to tell you why. Actually I'm going to stand on my soap box and rant a little.

During the first six weeks of my nursing training our instructor (her name was Mary Guise, wonderful teacher and a better human being) cautioned us new students about terms of endearment. She told us that she didn't like students referring to their patients using terms like "dear, honey, sweat-heart" and the like. I didn't fully grasp this but was certainly willing to do as I was told.

Than one day a few years later (still long before my days of paramedicine) we had to call an ambulance for my late Gramma (God rest her soul). We found her sitting on the toilet and we thought she had had a stroke. One of the paramedics that responded (she was actually a student at the time and I still know who she is) was an early 20's young lady and she called Gramma "dear". Then it clicked.

It was the most demeaning, patronizing thing I have ever heard. Who did she think she was? This 20-something girl called my Gramma "dear", bearing in mind my gramma at that point had lived almost four times as long as this patronizing medic. I know full well the medic's intention was good, maybe she thought by using a term of endearment she was bonding with the patient and putting her mind at ease. That's pure claptrap. It was insulting.

From a personal standpoint, I always refer to patients as sir or ma'am. Or Mr or Mrs so and so. Or by first name IF I ask them and IF they say it's OK to do so (they always do). That's just basic common courtesy. Ok, if I'm being completely honest, once I referred to a patient as an "ass-clown", but he was too drunk to remember. This is also how I instruct my students.

With that being said, I will say that if the patient is considerably younger than you, the medic, than you can get away with calling them "honey" or something along those lines. But only then.

It just makes me really, really mad. Before I didn't have a blog to vent my frustration. Now I do.
So parents, teach your kids that in a polite society, it's impolite to address someone you don't know by their first name unless invited to do so.

It's worse to call them "dear".

What's 10 minutes between friends?

I received a phone call from my partner Darren about something that happened with EMS yesterday and I couldn't believe my ears. It was even in the paper today.

Anyone know what I am talking about? Let me tell. There was a critical shortage of ambulances yesterday because of off load delays. Just so we are all working off the same page, I'll explain. When we take a patient to a hospital ER they remain our responsibility until the Triage Nurse (usually also the Charge Nurse) takes a report, finds a spot for the patient and GETS THEM OFF OUR BED. Doesn't matter why we brought the patient in, we are not available for anything else until this process completes. Even with the patient that has stubbed her toe last week and doesn't think the bruising is going away fast enough (don't laugh, it happens), we must remain with them until the hospital accepts responsibility.

Yesterday for a time in the afternoon it was SO desperate that all fire stations were put on alert, all volunteer stations were manned, and the fire department expanded the types of calls it responds to. Yesterday it was so bad that for a period of 10 minutes, there was NO AMBULANCE in the city available to respond. For anything. Keep in mind if you will that during the early afternoon is when there is a peak number of trucks available. There was 18 transporting ambulances, and 5 single medic response units at that time yesterday. None were available. None. After that 10 minutes, four became free and immediately two of them were sent on calls.

Lets put that into perspective. You are coming back to town from a day trip from say, the Niagara Region. You are in Binbrook on Hwy 56 and you get into an accident, you are in pain but breathing. Time line looks something like this:

1259: Someone calls 911 to report the accident.
1300: Volunteer fire station in Binbrook gets the call, Police are mobile, Ambulance notified but not yet mobile.
1305: Volunteers firefighters arrive at station and respond to call, police on scene, ambulance notified but not yet mobile.
1308: Volunteers firefighters on scene, police doing their bit, ambulance notified but not yet mobile.
1310: Ambulance now mobile from McMaster hospital, on route with lights and sirens blazing.
1335 (ish): Ambulance on scene.

Is that fair to you, the tax payer? The Director of EMS, Mr. Brent Browett was quick to point out that no critical calls happened during that 10 minutes that no ambulance was available. That's only by the grace of God.

Another scenario. What if you take your kids to Tim Hortons for a snack and you are 15 seconds down the street from the Henderson Hospital, and your son starts to choke on a timbit. Any idea what 10 minutes without oxygen does to the heart and brain? Sure, the fire department would have arrived to start CPR on your son and to try and give him oxygen, but they too would have to wait until we arrived. They can't transport patients.

All of the education, training, skills, and experience paramedics have don't mean one damn thing if we can't get there in time. As a community we should be outraged. Livid. Foaming at the mouth, ready to chew nails mad. We should stand up and demand that our representatives (MPP's if you want to know) take serious action.

What should that action be? Do we need more ambulances? Yes we do. First, however we need the hospitals to open the beds they closed to "meet their budgets". With more beds upstairs, patients in the ER that have been admitted can go upstairs, freeing ER beds, which gets us more room to off load and get back on the street.

I've spoken with my MPP, and written my city councilor (he hasn't answered me yet) and I plan to get back in touch with my MPP. This is important, though nobody died yesterday and that's a blessing; what about tomorrow?

Maybe when you're watching someone you love in pain and you're wondering "Where's the damn ambulance?" will it sink in. I hope you never have to experience that. I hope this message goes loud and clear that this is not acceptable. I hope action gets taken. I know that's naive. Realistically, most that hear of this will say "That's too bad, they should do something about that" and move on to the next blog, or the next article.

That's the saddest truth of all
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Pleased to make your acquaintance.

Jaci and were talking the other day (actually we talk several times each day but that's not overly relevant at this point) about friends and who we thought was a good friend and what indeed makes a good friend. This sent my little mind into a whirlwind tizzy and I concluded that I have very few friends, and a lot of acquaintances; and I'm OK with that.

I think some may be surprised by that statement because I'm (almost) always and open, honest, friendly guy. One might think I'd have dozens of friends. I don't think however that every one shares my definition of "friend". Allow me to explain.

To me a friend is someone you can always call upon, no matter the reason, no matter the time. A friend is someone always in your heart, even if they aren't always in the forefront of your mind. A friend will stand beside you throughout anything, "thick or thin" as it were. A friend will pass judgement on you (ie "Man, was THAT ever a stupid thing to do!"), and will be there years later to regale your children with the story (unless the friend was there too!)

Everyone else I think of is an acquaintance; and that's not a bad place to be. There are few honours greater than to be called "friend". Most of the people at work that I see almost every day and laugh with, share meals sometimes, share traumatic experiences with I don't call "work friends", they are acquaintances.

When I think of who in my life I can truly call friend, I think of my beloved Jaci first above all because she is my best friend in addition to being my beautiful bride. I think of John C. Whom I have known since the third grade. Even though these days we see each other only a few times a year; each time we are together it's like we never separated.

I think of my work partner Darren. Darren and I spend 40+ hours a week in the same room together, often more than we spend with our wives. Even though I have known him for a short while we very early on went past the"work partner" line and became friends.

There are others of course but when I start to count them on my fingers, I get to about 8 or so (barring family); and I'm OK with that. There are some acquaintances now that may become friends later, but I don't need to think of myself with hordes of friends to feel complete. The few friends I have, I cherish.

Does that make me a bad or cold person? I don't think so. Maybe I just have a different perspective; and thought I would share it with you.

My New Hero!

So we have a dog. Her name is Chewie ('cause she looks like a Wookie). Chewie is a very good natured dog and I have never really had a dog although I am a dog lover (love cats more, but that's another story). So when we got Chewie I wanted to make sure I tried to do things right. So I took her to obedience training and while it helps, it didn't take too long to realize that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to make a dog sit, stay or heel.

What I wanted to know was why do dogs do what they do? What does it mean when they do ? I really had no idea and the dog classes weren't much help there. So I went looking. I started by reading two books about German Shepherds that weren't all that useful.

Part of the reason that I really wanted to know what was going on inside her head was that we were having one main problem with Chewie. Whenever she would see another dog she would go haywire nuts. She would never growl, snarl, or do anything viscous, but she would P-U-L-L on the lead and bark her fool head off. Almost like when she gets there, blood will flow (which has been my biggest fear).

With that being said, with the dogs she has met face to face (or nose to anus) after a few minutes of barking there would be no problem. I can cite examples from my friends dog Roscoe (Roscoe rocks!), my sister's dog Marley (high strung, but nice), and by accident the neighbors twin schnauzers. Lots of noise, nothing really happening.

Then over Easter, Jaci's dad mentioned a TV show that Jaci's Papa watches called the Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan. So I started to watch the show. I was in awe, I was amazed, this guy is fantastic! He has place in California where he rehabilitates dogs. He has no formal training, he just knows dogs from watching and learning from them. He is the pack leader for a pack of 30-40 dogs. Many of which are powerful breeds like Pit Bulls, Rottweilers, German Shepherds and many others. All co-exist peacefully and naturally. He calls his place the Dog psychology Centre.

He has also written a book. Which I bought and read this past weekend while I was in Kingston. The book is called Cesar's Way. In it he describes exactly what I have been looking for, dog psychology. He also describes how he deals with dogs and why he does it that way and why it's effective. He also goes into great detail about how most human owners who mean well are really doing injustice to the dog. His book helped me to understand how I can help Chewie to have a more balanced and fufilled life while at the same time fufilling Jaci and my need for a family dog. Here's the 64 million dollar question: Does it work?

Well, I read the book over the weekend. I caught an episode of the show last night and many of the things he was doing in the show I recognized from the book. And the book made LOTS more sense. So what was I doing wrong? I wasn't being the pack leader 100% of the time and when the dog senses an absence of leadership, they will try to exert dominance. I was also not exercising her enough. Running in the back yard is not enough. Dogs MUST be WALKED. Book says MINIMUM 1/2 hour, twice a day. Even if you make them run for hours playing fetch or Frisbee or whatever, it's not enough. They must still be walked.

So why am I blogging about this? I will tell you my gentle readers. I took Chewie for a real walk this afternoon. I don't know exactly how long of a walk but we were bootin' it for about 90 minutes (seemingly uphill both ways, I don't get it). The way I walk, that makes about 6-8 Km. Toward the end of the walk I saw a man walking his dog (really it looked like a slipper) and using my newly learned techniques, Chewie didn't bark ONCE! She didn't jump ONCE! Nothing! I was stunned then amazingly happy! It works, it really works.

I am now an avid Cesar Millan fan, he is my new hero. Chewie and I still have work to do and a way to go, but it's easily doable now. So I thought I would share my doggie news with my faithful readership!

If there is anyone out there who wants to understand dogs better, buy this book and watch this show. I cannot tell you what a positive eye-opener this experience has become.

Vene, vidi, vici. Hail Cesar!