EMS Operations
The term for pre-established, written medical directives created and approved by an EMS medical director.
What are standing orders?
This suffix means inflammation.
What is -itis?
This large, dome-shaped muscle contracts and moves downward during normal inhalation.
What is the diaphragm?
These four questions help us determine a patient's A+O level.
What are name, location, time, and event?
This term refers to the gas exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
What is respiration?
This type of medical direction involves real-time communication with a physician or other authorized medical provider.
What is online medical direction?
This is the region below and to the right of the umbilicus.
These blood vessels return oxygenated blood from the lungs to the left atrium.
What are the pulmonary veins?
This stage of shock may present with tachycardia, tachypnea, and cool, clammy skin while blood pressure remains relatively normal.
What is compensatory shock?
This sound often indicates partial upper airway obstruction caused by relaxed soft tissues, including the tongue, in an unconscious patient.
What is snoring?
This is the appropriate course of action when an unconscious patient requires resuscitation and family members report a DNR order but cannot produce valid documentation.
What is initiate resuscitation?
This is the term for overhydration.
What is hyponatremia?
This condition occurs when the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to body tissues becomes inadequate, potentially impairing cellular metabolism after significant blood loss.
What is hypoperfusion (or shock)?
This intervention may become necessary when a patient with severe respiratory distress develops inadequate respiratory depth, poor chest rise, fatigue, or declining mental status.
What are BVM ventilations?
This measurement is calculated by multiplying respiratory rate by tidal volume and helps explain why rapid, shallow breathing may move less air per minute than slower, deeper breathing.
What is minute volume?
This ability must be evaluated when an alert but confused adult refuses transport after a serious injury and cannot explain the risks of refusal.
What is decision-making capacity?
These three anatomical directional terms describe a location on the front, inner side of the lower leg, closer to the knee than the ankle.
What are anterior, medial, and proximal?
These are the four types of shock.
During your primary assessment of a 68-year-old patient with shortness of breath, you find that she is increasingly confused, her respiratory rate has decreased from 32 to 10 breaths per minute, and her breathing has become shallow. These changes indicate that her condition is progressing from respiratory distress to this more serious condition.
What is respiratory failure?
This complication of excessive or forceful BVM ventilation causes air to enter the stomach, increasing the risk of regurgitation and aspiration.
What is gastric inflation or distention?
These are the four elements that must be demonstrated in order to prove an EMT was negligent.
What are duty of care, breach of duty, causation, and damage?
This medical term describes abnormal sensations such as tingling, burning, or pins and needles.
What is paresthesia?
These three components affect stroke volume.
What are preload, contractility, and afterload?
You are assessing a 72-year-old patient who experienced a sudden episode of dizziness and nearly fainted. His blood pressure is 138/84, heart rate is 88, and respiratory rate is 18. He is alert and oriented, but his radial pulses are weak, his skin is cool and pale, and his capillary refill is delayed. These findings demonstrate why EMTs must assess this physiological process rather than relying solely on blood pressure to determine circulatory adequacy.
What is perfusion?
You are ventilating an unresponsive patient with a BVM. Despite an adequate mask seal and visible chest rise, the patient's oxygen saturation remains low. You suspect that air is reaching the alveoli but oxygen is not effectively entering the bloodstream because blood flow through portions of the lungs is impaired. This term describes an imbalance between airflow and blood flow in the lungs.
What is a V/Q (ventilation/perfusion) mismatch?