Sooner or later, every nurse must suction a patient. For nurses who work in intensive care units or emergency care or who support patients with spinal cord injuries, suctioning may be a daily part of the job. When suctioning becomes routine, it’s easy to lose sight of the risks. Some simple precautionary measures can both reduce risk and improve patient outcomes.

For adults and children, respiratory diseases are typically just a minor annoyance. For neonates, they can be fatal. Respiratory distress is a leading cause of death in newborns, particularly premature infants. In addition to infectious causes, it also occurs in 7% of neonates.

During a code, knowing where your supplies are located on your crash cart is just as important as having everything necessary. Navigating your way through a hectic code is much easier when you have an organized system for your crash cart. Here are some tips. 

Airway management is a critical component of every first responder’s job. From clearing the airway of secretions, to managing complex aspiration cases and assessing causes of respiratory distress, the right equipment is key.

World Hemophilia Day, supported by the World Federation of Hemophilia, falls on April 17. Like other health events marked on the calendar, it’s an important opportunity to raise awareness about the blood clotting disorder and to ensure health care and treatment are more equitable and accessible for everyone affected by the disorder. 

Being an EMS worker is a demanding job that often requires heavy lifting and carrying, working in dangerous conditions and exposure to bodily fluids or other substances.

Seizures are a common emergency. First responders frequently encounter febrile seizures in children, epileptic seizures, and seizures due to brain anomalies such as dementia or brain lesions. In most cases, the seizure itself is not dangerous, but the medical condition that caused it may be.

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 of intubation, explaining procedures to patients, as well as gaining the trust of seniors and children. Paramedic jobs consistently top lists of the most stressful professions. Over time, this stress can affect both your physical and mental health.

Though your team may have a general disaster preparedness plan that you can fall back on if a tornado were to strike, or if a large flood were to inundate surrounding communities, how often do you evaluate this plan and the effectiveness of the disaster resources, protocols and equipment you have in place? 

As an emergency provider, you may not initially be in the mindset of preventing long-term complications with your patient. You stabilize and treat your patient’s condition or injury, and then you focus on how to manage the patient moving forward. This is the nature of prehospital and emergency medicine—assess, stabilize, and “package” the patient for further care. But let’s take it a step further. Your initial actions, especially when it comes to protecting your patient’s airway, make a big difference in your patient’s future outcomes.