Whether you’re a doctor, nurse, or EMS professional, treating patients in an emergency scenario is stressful and exhausting. Competent, compassionate care often requires working as quickly as possible while minimizing needless distractions. Many providers skip lunch and breaks, ignore their own personal needs, and work hour after hour in frigid temperatures or on empty stomachs.

September was National Atrial Fibrillation Awareness Month, an important time to spread knowledge about the heart condition and its impact on the health and quality of life of individuals and families throughout the country.

Medical suction is one of the most fundamental treatments in emergency response. Whether you are clearing vomit from an unresponsive patient, controlling bleeding in a trauma victim, or visualizing the cords during intubation, your portable suction unit is one of the most important tools in your EMS arsenal.

It’s back-to-school season. You’ve thought of the lunches, the new pencils and those lovely first-day-of-school outfits. But, is airway safety on your back-to-school checklist? There are many airway emergencies that can happen at school that providers, families, school nurses and teachers should be aware of and prepared to address.

As an EMS responder, you know how important a well-stocked trauma bag can be to the smooth running of emergency scenes. When you’re involved in the rapid, complex stabilization of a trauma patient, there’s nothing better than knowing that every piece of equipment you need is right within arm’s reach. A variety of dressings, assessment tools, and personal protection gear are all critical inclusions in your trauma bag. But none is so imperative as airway equipment, for without a patent airway, nothing you do for your patient will really matter.

If you were to design the ideal portable suction machine for emergency medical situations, what characteristics would you choose? The equipment used by EMS professionals takes a beating on a regular basis. Emergency calls happen in the most inopportune locations at any time of the day or night. The tools must be designed to withstand inclement weather, temperature extremes, and the rough-and-tumble arena of prehospital medicine. And when it comes to something as vital as your portable suction machine, there's no room for error. Let’s look at some important criteria when choosing the ultimate suction machine.

Respiratory health concerns become more prevalent as people age and develop various physical symptoms, conditions and traumas. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the rate of ambulatory-care visits for respiratory care is highest among people aged 85 and older.

Many medical situations require emergency suction. And when you have a patient with an obstructed airway, be it from sputum, blood, vomitus, or tissue, you had better have the suction handy, for there is no other way to return the airway to patency.

COVID-19 fundamentally changed everything about how many people live. Choices that once seemed innocuous, such as going to the dentist or the grocery store, can now expose people to a lethal virus.

Respiratory muscle weakness is a common disorder often associated with weakened coughing, breathing and other airway functions, and it’s critical that providers and patients know how to identify symptoms of this condition to ensure the healthiest breathing and respiratory functions possible for all individuals.