Medical suction can save lives when it’s properly performed. However, improper technique can make an emergency situation worse, causing potentially catastrophic injuries. The right training for your paramedic team can maximize their job effectiveness and even save lives. Here’s what your team needs to know about safe medical suction.

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.

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.

Your team’s airway management is only as good as its medical suction units. Diligent practice, exceptional technique, and skillful assessments cannot compensate for a medical suction unit that does not work well. Sometimes, fixing suction issues is a simple matter of better storage or keeping an extra battery on hand. In other cases, such as those detailed below, it may be time to replace your suction device.

Whether you are an EMS administrator or you work within a hospital setting, there comes a time when old equipment must be replaced. Different agencies will have different bureaucratic processes, but it usually comes down to cost. What do we need, and how much can we spend?

There were more than 5,300 choking deaths in 2021. Aspiration remains alarmingly common and accounts for about 15.8% of community-acquired pneumonia cases. This means airway management remains a critical and life-saving tool for EMS responders. Whether it’s intubating a choking victim, clearing the airway in a patient suffering from pneumonia, or dealing with the aftermath of aspiration, suction catheters are an essential tool in every first responder’s kit.

In 2022, there were 647 mass shootings, and as of mid-year 2023, there have already been more than 300. Tactical medical response requires a different skill set and approach than that required when an elder falls, or a child has a choking episode. Tactical medical injuries are high-stakes, and first responders must provide prompt care in a high-stress environment where split-second decisions can be a matter of life and death.

Emergency medicine is constantly evolving, and new technologies and techniques are emerging all the time. While it is great to embrace innovation, we sometimes less value is placed on basic skills, such as oral suctioning. As an EMS provider, you must adapt to new technologies and techniques but always focus on your most basic skills.

Imagine sitting through a visit with the dentist without the use of suction. Medical suction machines allow dentists, periodontists, and oral surgeons the ability to keep the airway clear while performing critical treatments.

Quickly and efficiently hooking up your portable suction machine can save precious seconds, preventing hypoxia and reducing the risk of serious respiratory complications. It should only take a few seconds, but if you’ve never done it before, the process can feel overwhelming and frustrating.

It’s important that your team regularly drill the process, particularly if using suction machines is an infrequent part of your job with which team members have little practice. Here are the basic steps for getting your machine ready to go.