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Showing posts with the label Critical Incident Stress Debriefing

Critical incidents: it's not heartless, at least I hope not.

Terrible things happen to good and/or undeserving people.  The drunk driver walks away from heaps of scrapped metal.  Parents do the exact opposite of take care of their children. One persons stupidity leads to another persons demise.  Sometimes people just die because of unintended side effects. I had the misfortune to help with one of these cases the other day.  A young female, no medical history.  Only medication was oral contraceptives (Now I'm hoping as I write this that it doesn't turn into the catholic churches next stand against contraceptives).  Started complaining of not feeling well a few days ago and had fainted earlier on the day I met her.  When I met her she was already intubated and waiting to go to a major hospitals.  She had coded a half dozen times already.  In EMS we have this silly notion of an "EMS code save" which means very little for people we treat.  It just means that we got them to the hospital with a...

Critical Incident Stress Debriefing: Rule 1, It's confidential, respect the other attendees.

The first thing I have to say about a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing(CISD) is that they are like civil fight clubs. They have a very sensitive, confidential nature about them, so like fight club it has 2 rules. You don't talk about the CISD.  You DO NOT talk about the CISD. Jk...