as far as doing a pericardiocentensis, in my 9 years in paramedicine i
have done the procedure once in a last ditch effort to reverse a trauma patient
in PEA with all other means exhausted. even though, to my knowledge, the
procedure was what i expected, it did not change or improve the outcome. my
experiences have seen that this is not only a rare occurrence, but not an entirely
successful one, even for surgeons (in reference to emergent care and not
surgery). i believe that if even one person can possibly be saved by this procedure
that it should remain until we prove that it is iatrogenic to the people we
serve. to say this intervention is fairly successful, i agree with a previous
response in that you should document it as it is a major revelation in not only
prehospital care, but in medicine as a whole. i think that we are an advanced
forum to the prehospital and critical care setting and that some people should
be more careful as to what they are saying. we are here to learn, not to
impress or impose superiority. on a more serious note, we have recently lost some
members of our flight community and i send my condolences to their friends and
families. i hope that everybody else has a safe year.
respectfully,
derek hunt nr/ccemt-p, pncct, fp-c
ufgatord at aol.com
ps- we use labatelol in 10mg increments up to 80mg. i've been told that 20mg
is the therapeutic dose. i have great fondness for the drug and i think it
works very well.