Airway management is a key pillar of emergency medicine. When performed correctly, it can save lives, improve surgical outcomes, and improve quality of life for terminally ill patients. However, airway management presents a number of complications and risks. Knowing the contraindications for airway management can help you better serve patients and reduce the risk of needless morbidity. 

Assessing for a gag reflex is a basic skill that can become important in a variety of medical settings. It is also a way to measure brain death. Medical experts, however, now caution against using the gag reflex as a primary determinant of whether to intubate, or as a measure of airway health. So first responders must balance competing information and studies to make informed decisions in each individual case. Here’s what you need to know about checking for a gag reflex in an intubated patient. 

Prehospital care is about much more than just stabilizing patients and moving them on to the next step. The decisions you make can have far-reaching implications for a patient’s life and well-being. This is why it’s so important to gather as much information as possible, and to act collaboratively with family members. Include them in the decision-making process as much as you can, and remember that the patient has final say over their treatment. 

Life as a paramedic means intense highs when you save lives and tend to grateful patients, as well as bottomless lows when patients die, suffer, or become combative and angry. You’ll need to be prepared for the sudden adrenaline rush of a patient in need, as well as the slow and methodical approach that intubation, explaining procedures to patients, and gaining the trust of seniors and children all demand. Paramedic jobs consistently top lists of the most stressful professions. Over time, this stress can affect both your physical and mental health. 

It’s a dramatic plot twist in movies, medical dramas, and even the occasional sitcom: a character is choking or in respiratory distress and standard interventions like the Heimlich maneuver just aren’t cutting it. So a heroic bystander takes things into their own hands and jams a pen into the victim’s throat, much to everyone’s horror. But then, to everyone’s shock and relief, doing so clears the airway, allowing the survivor to breathe until help arrives. But can you really do this? 

Fires kill more than 3,000 Americans each year. Most die not from burns but from oxygen deprivation due to smoke inhalation. Immediate survivors of the blaze are not out of the woods. The consequences of smoke inhalation can show up hours or even days later. Apparently healthy people can die even when they seem able to breathe. When treating smoke inhalation, here’s what not to do—and what you must do instead. 

Hypotension is clinically defined as systolic blood pressure below 90 or diastolic blood pressure below 60. Slight variations in these figures are normal, and very fit people may have unusually low blood pressure. So it’s important to take into account the patient’s full condition, not just their blood pressure. When a patient has other symptoms, such as dizziness or fainting, hypotension may signal a serious or even life-threatening ailment. If you encounter a hypotensive patient, here’s what you need to know to administer proper treatment.