Paramedics Stories
Paramedic Treats Patients Like Family
Nova Scotians get some of the best emergency care around believes a long-time paramedic based in Cape Breton.
Billy Brown is a primary care paramedic who has been working in the province for twenty five years. It was a love of working with the community that helped Billy decide to apply for an opening in 1985. Back then, it was a privately-owned ambulance and funeral home in New Waterford.
But a lot has changed over the years.
"As far as patient care goes, you won't get anything better right now," said Mr. Brown. "With the training that we have now, and we're always looking at improving ourselves, we can improve a patient's outcome when we show up at the house and get them to the hospital."
When he first started he needed to take a two week emergency medical attendant course. At that time, all he needed to know was basic CPR, how to get people out of motor vehicle accidents, how to check blood pressure and how to recognize signs of respiratory distress. Like most veteran paramedics, Billy says he was grandfathered into the modern-day paramedic standards in the 1990s when the province amalgamated 55 ambulance companies. Since then, he's taken courses on techniques for intravenous, intubation, basic life support and how to administer life saving drugs.
Advances in medical procedures and new drugs mean Nova Scotia's paramedics are always learning.
He says the recent change to allow paramedics to administer the clot-busting drug to patients experiencing a heart attack is one area where emergency care has really improved. In Cape Breton, paramedics can communicate directly with an emergency room physician and by using a checklist, determine if a patient is suffering a heart attack. When a patient has a heart attack, paramedics can administer the drug remotely on behalf of a physician connected by cellular phone.
"If you were taking a myocardial infarction (heart attack) before, you were on a stretcher getting oxygen. Now we can say this person needs the drug and we call the doctor. We've had great outcomes with it."
Paramedics take frequent professional development opportunities through their employer or through area hospitals. But it's more than just courses. Mr. Brown said training also comes from talking to ER doctors and nurses about what they observe in the patient. Conversations like this can pay off later because paramedics may better anticipate a patient's needs if they ever see that condition again.
He said his training pays off when he's able to make a big difference in someone's life. Whether it's the patient who thanked him for convincing her to go to the hospital only to later discover she was suffering a stroke or it's telling a young mother to expect a new family member after an unexpected birth, this paramedic said interacting with people keeps him coming back to the job every day.
"When I started 25 years ago, all we had was a stretcher, oxygen, your basic airways and CPR. The training we get today is unbelievable."
"If we would have had it back then, some patient outcomes would have been great because we would have been able to treat them right in their house. As years go by, we are continually improving what we are doing."
Looking forward, Billy has family that will continue his legacy in health care. He has a daughter in nursing. He shared with her some of the advice he got when he started as a paramedic 25 years ago.
"My boss told me to treat people like your own family members. You'll get along just fine."
Paramedic Profession Always Changing
A ride in his uncle's ambulance at age 15 got Tim Bayers hooked on paramedicine.
Now he's the operations manager for the western region Emergency Health Services. He says his profession has changed, and grown substantially over the past 28 years.
"Back in the early days, the funeral home provided the ambulance service because they had the only type of vehicle that could transport somebody," he said. "Then it was more about transportation to the hospital than taking care of the sick and injured."
When the switch was made from providing emergency transportation to the hospital to emergency medical care and emergency medical response, Mr. Bayers, along with his other paramedicine colleagues were required to upgrade their training.
"When I first started all you needed was a CPR card and a basic first aid course," he explained. "Now we're multi-functional and multi-level paramedics that take one to three plus years of training through colleges that are accredited through the Canadian Medical Association.
"No one on an ambulance now in the province can work unless they've obtained at least the primary care paramedic level."
In 2003, Tim went back to school to formally upgrade his training and education to become an advanced care paramedic. It was a two year program that he took through distance education, every other weekend and two evenings every other week, so that he could study while maintaining his full-time supervisory role. In addition to the heavy course load, homework and classroom time, he also needed to complete 1,000 hours of clinical training before graduation.
"Training involved riding along with another advanced care paramedic and learning their skills as well as spending time in emergency rooms and operating rooms learning advanced airway techniques. We even spent time covering mental health, obstetrics and respiratory therapy. It was intensive."
Paramedics care for the needs of their entire community and the field continues to shift and grow to reflect the requirements of Nova Scotia's population as well as the needs of the health care system. As the province continues to improve health care and health outcomes for Nova Scotian's, paramedics advance their profession by providing the necessary care to meet these needs.
"We need to partner with other primary health care providers, the doctors, the nurse practitioners, to help provide better care," explained Mr. Bayers. "In the community care program on Long and Brier Islands, we go out and make house calls, draw blood and help to make sure seniors are staying safe in their own homes. We have the ability to assist more and more."
Mr. Bayers said one of the most rewarding parts of living and working in the same community is making a difference.
"I've had grandchildren show up at our base with a thank you card and a box of chocolates for my partner and I in the shape of a heart as a thank you for saving their Grampy."
Hometown Paramedic Helps People Stay Healthy
Steve Menzies of Berwick made the jump from volunteer firefighter to paramedic in February 1988 and hasn't looked back since.
As an intermediate paramedic, he's currently the operations supervisor for Emergency Health Services (EHS) in Berwick, Middleton and Bridgetown. What's most rewarding for him is the opportunity to live and work in the area where he grew up.
He also finds that new challenges and different ways of providing care are what make his job interesting day after day. Recently, he's taken primary health care collaboration certification through both Dalhousie University and Memorial University in Newfoundland. He said this type of care is important for the future of the paramedic profession.
"I see us becoming mobile health care as opposed to just emergency health care, more on the promotion and prevention end of things., And he's got experience to back that up.
Steve was recently a supervisor working on Long and Brier Islands through the community paramedic program. In the remote rural communities of southwestern Nova Scotia, paramedics partner with a family doctor based on the mainland and a nurse practitioner to offer health services.
He said the experience opened his eyes to the potential for paramedicine beyond emergency health care. What's different, he said, is that it's a knock on the door to do a seniors fall assessment or a blood pressure check rather than rush them away to hospital.
The program has allowed paramedics with expanded scope to offer more within the community. And for Steve Menzies, giving back to the community he grew up in is the reason he got into the profession.
"Growing up here, knowing them and them knowing me, it's quite rewarding," he said. "It's good that you get to know many of the people but no two days are the same. And there's not much about the job that's very routine."
It's the non-routine and ability to respond to just about anything that Steve said Nova Scotians should feel good about when they access care through a paramedic.
"The care that Nova Scotians get from paramedics is state of the art, by highly trained professionals who love their job. We're an emergency room on wheels."
In the future, Steve sees paramedics becoming an expanding health-care resource in the community.
"It can be hard to change people's vision of years gone by when it was just a drive to the hospital. Now there are advanced techniques that we can do for people in their homes and on route to the hospital. Now that it can be done by paramedics if they have to go to hospital, hopefully it will shorten their stay."