Medical Terminology & Life Span
This direction-revealing medical term describes a location that is closer to the torso, such as the elbow when compared to the wrist.
What is proximal?
If an EMT initiates care on a patient and leaves the scene before transferring that patient to someone with equal or greater medical training, they can be held liable for this offense.
What is abandonment?
This major venous structure is responsible for returning oxygen-poor blood from the lower portions of the body back to the right atrium of the heart.
What is the inferior vena cava?
Because water conducts heat away from the body dramatically faster than still air, wet clothing or submersion introduces this rapid cooling phenomenon.
What is water chill?
This temporary, maternal organ of pregnancy is where the critical exchange of oxygen, nutrients, and waste products occurs between the mother and the developing fetus.
What is the placenta?
If a patient is found resting flat on their back, they are in this anatomical position; whereas if they are lying completely on their side, they are in the recovery position
What is supine?
Forcing a conscious, mentally competent adult to go to the hospital against their explicitly stated will can result in these specific legal charges against the EMT.
What are assault and/or battery?
When a patient is in cardiac arrest but the monitor displays a visually organized electrical rhythm that fails to produce a mechanical pulse, it is defined as this condition.
What is Pulseless Electrical Activity (PEA)?
This method of body heat regulation becomes increasingly ineffective as atmospheric humidity rises, preventing the body from cooling itself through perspiration.
What is evaporation?
This obstetric emergency is characterized by a low-lying placenta that implants over or very close to the cervical opening, blocking a normal vaginal delivery and causing severe bleeding risks.
What is placenta previa?
While an adult's normal at-rest heart rate is 60 to 100 beats per minute, this youngest age group typically exhibits a much faster normal pulse range of 100 to 170 beats per minute.
What is a newborn (or infancy)?
This type of consent applies to an adult patient found unconscious at the bottom of a stairwell, allowing the EMT to legally provide life-saving care based on an assumed desire for help.
What is implied consent?
While ventricular fibrillation is a shockable rhythm, an AED will look for a flatline, which is medically termed this non-shockable rhythm.
What is asystole?
Applying an external heat source—such as heat packs directly to the groin, armpits, neck, and lateral chest of a hypothermic patient—is classified as this specific rewarming technique.
What is active central rewarming?
Characterized by irregular, unpredictable, and typically painless contractions, this phenomenon is often referred to as "false labor".
What are Braxton-Hicks contractions?
From an EMT's perspective, childhood diseases like chickenpox, German measles, and whooping cough all share this specific mode of transmission.
What is airborne droplets?
This legal concept, meaning "the thing speaks for itself," is sometimes applied in tort law when a patient care error is so obvious that negligence is inferred on its face.
What is res ipsa loquitur?
This cardiovascular condition is characterized by a localized dilation or "ballooning" of a weakened section of an arterial wall, which poses a catastrophic risk if it ruptures.
What is an aneurysm?
When an inexperienced hiker rapidly ascends over 8,000 feet and presents with a diffuse headache, profound fatigue, and signs of dehydration, they are likely suffering from this condition.
What is acute mountain sickness?
To optimize spinal motion restriction on a long backboard for a pediatric patient who is 6 years old or younger, an EMT must provide extra padding beneath this specific anatomical area.
What is between/beneath the shoulder blades (the upper back)?
Breaking down the medical term for a common gallbladder inflammation—cholecystitis—yields three distinct parts meaning these three things.
What are bile (chole), sac (cyst), and inflammation (itis)?
To prove a claim of negligence against an EMT in a court of law, these three distinct circumstances must be successfully demonstrated by the plaintiff.
What are duty to act, breach of duty (failure to provide standard of care), and proximate causation (the breach caused harm)?
This transient condition, caused by blunt-force trauma to the chest during a precise millisecond in the cardiac cycle, triggers sudden cardiac arrest in healthy individuals without damaging the muscle structure itself.
What is commotio cordis?
In scuba diving accidents, this specific emergency is caused by nitrogen gas bubbles becoming trapped in the body's tissues due to ascending too quickly from a deep dive.
What is decompression sickness?
When troubleshooting a sudden home ventilator emergency, an EMT utilizes the acronym "DOPE" to systematic check for these four mechanical and clinical failures
What are Displacement (of the tube), Obstruction (of the tube), Pneumothorax (or pneumonia), and Equipment failure?