Police officers across the country have been watching how EMS and ED staff perform medical skills and take action “to help” on the street and in emergency departments.
This can’t be! It is just plain crazy right? Those are specialized skills requiring specialized training because they can be dangerous and potentially high liability actions. A mistake means someone could be injured or even worse-killed. Just watching what medical staff do doesn’t mean they fully understand the “what, why, when to or not to right”?
On an emergency scene or on the emergency department would you want to have an untrained officer intubate your patient?
What about having them start an IV for you?
Push a medication?
Interpret ECG?
If your answer is “yes” have you considered the legal implications of such an answer? What would your supervisor, administrator, risk management or legal department think about it?
If you answered “no” why not?
If you answered “no” I bet it is because of this: As a paramedic or a nurse, you have had hundreds of hours of specific initial and ongoing medical training to handle emergency situations requiring those treatments.
You had to learn ( to name a few)
- Anatomy- What I will be working on
- Physiology- How what I work on- works
- Pharmacology- what will drugs do to what I am supposed to work on
- Cardiology- What makes it tick
- Airway management (basic and advanced)- How to keep it open
- CPR (Basic Life Support) -Because the tick ain’t ticking
- ECG interpretation- What do FLB’s (funny little beats) look like
- ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support)- How to fix those FLBs)
- Trauma- Anatomy broke, problem with Physiology
All of this and more to understand when you should and when you should not perform a skill, you know (CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS) that the non-medically trained police officer has not.
Because the police officer obtains hundreds of hours of specialized initial and ongoing training on:
- Laws- (local, state and federal)- What to enforce
- Use-of-force covering:
- Mechanics of arrest and control- The techniques
- Force options -Tools combined with techniques and specific trained for each and every tool carried- including the firearm
- Reasonable- What can be used when
- Uniformed Patrol- How to deter criminal activity just by being seen
- Domestic Violence- How to and when to intervene
- Driving while Drunk/Drugged- When a person is believed intoxicated and when they are not
and much, much more gives police officers CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS for their chosen profession.
It makes no sense to have a police officer handling dangerous and potentially lethal situations he/she has no training for… Which is exactly why it does NOT happen.
So why then, in emergent situations, are EMS and ED staff using a high liability skills (restraints and or physical force to control someone) with little or no training? Having a police officer doing skills they are not trained or equipped for is the same as EMS/ED staff doing skills they are not trained or equipped for.
Is it simply because it is an emergency? Both police officers and medical staff are trained for the emergencies they are supposed to handle. What is the liability or actual physical dangers of crossing the lines?
Simply watching someone does not mean the skill is understood, you know all of the “why to do, when to not do, how much to do etc). Since medical staff have had little or no training on the use of force they respond with a physical skill they have seen police use.
Cooperative inter-agency training is where we are headed. Violence against staff and the excessive use-of-force toward patients in medicine is running rampant. If you are admin- fix it. If you are front line staff, start talking to your admin about it.
We are not asking you to NOT DO your job. We are asking you to do your job SAFELY.
Here are a few things to look at to help prove the problem exists: