Image from madehow.com

My first patient a couple of weeks ago was worried because following a routine visit to the dentist’s surgery she had come away with rather more than she bargained for.

The dentist was working on one of her molars and during the procedure the drill bit came loose and was swallowed before the dental assistant could suck it up.  Dental drill bits are commonly formed from tungsten carbide particles and are usually less than 3 cm long. Luckily she swallowed rather than inhaled the bit as things could have been a lot more serious giving rise to some serious breathing difficulties. We reassured her that nature would take her course and that there were unlikely to be any adverse incidents as the bit passed through her digestive tract. We advised her to seek medical attention if she had any new or worrying symptoms. The dentist had given her instructions too; he had asked her to look out for the bit so that she could retrieve it and return it to the surgery – apparently they are quite expensive! Say arhhh!

Lysa was asked at short notice to appear on Sky News today to talk about ‘Mad Friday’ – the busiest night of the year for office Christmas parties. Ambulance Services, Police Forces and Hospitals all experienced an increase number of calls last night related to people who were inebriated.

Lysa appeared on Lorna Dunkley’s show at around 12:15 this afternoon and discussed her many years of experience dealing with intoxicated individuals at this time of year.

The photos below were taken by Lysa in the Sky News studios.

Lysa in make up at the Sky News studio

The Sky News Green Room

The Sky News studio as seen from the Green Room

Image by soapylove, on Flickr

This website was launched on Thursday December 4th, 2008, with my initial post, Snapshots.

As a Birthday celebration I asked Jon (my website guy) to pull some facts and figures out of the analytics for the website. Here’s what he came up with.

Aside from the homepage, the most popular page on the site is the gallery. I will definitely try to add more photos to this in 2012!

The three most popular stories (in terms of pageviews) on the site are:

1. June 2010 – where I wrote about how London Ambulance Service decided they would no longer use ECPs as part of their workforce. ECPs were officially redeployed to other roles as of April 2011.
2. August 2009 – where I wrote about the subject of Paramedic Prescribing – which continues to be a hot topic.
3. January 2010 – where Charlotte kindly wrote the first in a short series of articles on Life as a Student Paramedic.

I was back in Italy last week with my friends Carol & Jaqui, and on our first night there we were enchanted as we watched a spectacular performance of Verdi’s ‘La Traviata’ in Verona’s majestic 2,000 year old Roman amphitheatre. Under the inky blue night sky, only the occasional breeze gently reminded us that we were sitting outside.  At the beginning of each interval, as well as the obligatory glass of prosecco, we also rapidly sought out our friends Davide and Alfonso. They are volunteers for the ‘Croce Verde Ambulance Service’ and anyone who has had the pleasure of seeing the opera in Verona will have noticed the ambulance vehicles permanently parked outside the arena during the opera season to provide a medical presence to assist with emergencies during the performance. Luckily as well as being practical, their bright orange attire also made them pretty easy to spot among the rest of the audience (who in general were wearing rather more sober colours). The boys had both kindly reorganised their shifts to ensure that they would be on-duty with their colleagues on the night we were coming. Here are a couple of photographs we took to capture a fabulous evening.

What a spectacular place to work for an ambulance service and I do quite like orange, I wonder if I could get a secondment….

I was recently interviewed for Ambulance Today magazine – here is a direct link to the online PDF version of the magazine. I was interviewed by the editor, Declan Heneghan, about my career – starting from my job in the circus, which regular readers of this website will know all about!

For those of you who have visited my site after reading the article, here are some articles on the site which give more background on the things that were talked about in the article:

• I wrote about the reasons for writing my first book, “999″. The second edition of the book will be released in July under the title “Rapid Response“. This is just a second edition – the content is the same!
• Not that i’m unashamedly self-promoting here (!), but I have also written about my second book “Katie the Paramedic”, and subsequent book readings I have done.
• I have also written about my work on knife crime with The Uncut Project and Word 4 Weapons.

I also get a lot of visits and searches that lead to the following articles:

• Life as a Student Paramedic – see this category for useful information. For more information and to talk to others about a career in the ambulance service, join the facebook group “so you want to be a Paramedic?”.
• Elastic Band injuries – I never imagined I would get so many hits for this when I wrote the article!

Some of the most popular articles on the site are:

• London Ambulance Service decides they will no longer use Emergency Care Practitioners as part of their workforce and Paramedic Prescribing – both hot topics at the moment.
• Croydon Collision Reconstruction.
• My visits to an Italian Ambulance Service – part 1, part 2, part 3.

Be sure to visit the site regularly to view new stories!

I had a something of a busman’s holiday recently. I went back to Verona for a few days to visit some of my friends Massimilliano and Alfonso who work for the emergency services there (See my previous posts on visiting an Italian ambulance service: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

Last time I went to Verona, it was during a very hot summer period so this time was in stark contrast to that visit. In fact, the cold was biting and not unusually for the region at this time of year, a thick fog hung low in the air for most of the week. Alfonso kindly ferried me around, picking me up and dropping me off at the airport. Massimilliano, who also works for the Croce Verde ambulance service, had arranged for me to have a look around various places that I indicated would be of interest to me.

We started with the Vigili del Fuoco ~ Fire Station. As well as a guided tour of all of the usual fire engines and equipment, friendly fireman Paolo took us to see the amphibious vehicle that had proved so helpful rescuing stricken victims during the recent floods in the area. He also treated me to a hair-raising ride as I was elevated 30 metres on the aerial ladder platform where the views of the city were quite stunning. I was somewhat surprised and amused when Paolo then led us to a beautiful fully stocked bar. Looking just like a regular bar you could find on any little Italian side-street, it seemed perfectly incongruous situated in the middle of a utilitarian fire station. We paused briefly to have an espresso break – well it would have been rude not to, ‘when in Rome’ and all that!

The afore mentioned fog was responsible for grounding the emergency medical helicopter for the majority of the week of my visit, except by some amazing stroke of good luck, the day Massimilliano took me to see it. I was delighted by the offer of an impromptu flight over Verona in the yellow EC146 as she flew back to base at the end of the shift. It was just before sunset, and still light enough to see some of my favourite sights from a whole new perspective. The fabulous Arena, home to the opera. Piazza Erbe with it’s bustling bars and market stalls and the Roman Theatre perched on the side of the hill, all twinkled invitingly below in the evening light.

Finally, the next day the capo ~ head of the Verona polizia stradale ~ traffic police gave me a tour of their station where I met a beautiful dog who was the very friendly station mascot! I think Massimilliano may have misrepresented me ‘as someone important from London’ because during the tour his aides were continually taking my photograph as I was shown around the station looking at the different vehicles and equipment!

I was extremely interesting to see how things are done the Italian way, and everyone made me feel so welcome. The thing that remains most in my mind though was the flight over Verona, a very special moment indeed ~ thank you Massimilliano for making it possible.

No post from me this week as i’m a bit under the weather, so i’m going to direct you towards the facebook group for your weekly fix of paramedic stories.

The group is aimed at people thinking of a career as a Paramedic and is therefore practically titled ‘So you want to be a Paramedic?‘

On the group there are a wealth of photos, both from recent training and of old ambulance service vehicles (which are sure to instill some nostalgic memories in those that have been in the service a few years).

There is also an active discussion forum with lots of advice offered to others about entering the Paramedic profession. Thanks to everyone who has been contributing to the group.

Back to regular stories next week!

[This article was written by Jon Yates from Hero Consulting. Follow him on twitter.]

I must say i’m partial to kitsch items that are somehow related to anatomy or medicine. I’m not afraid to admit it. I thought i’d share a few i’ve seen that have caught my eye (and some that i’ve bought!).  All prices correct at time of writing.

Dr Jam’s Man Flu Stress Ball

A large tablet shaped stress reliever, I bought it the first day I saw it. It’s a little bit strange to squeeze as it tends to bend in the middle along the centre groove, but this really caught my eye and is currently sitting on my desk.  An absolute steal at £1.99 from Play.com.

Blood Bath Shower Gel

Not managed to buy one of these yet, because they sell out so quickly!  This cherry scented shower gel is in a bag that looks like IV fluid (commonly referred to as a ‘drip’). Available from Spinning Hat (when it’s not sold out).

Dr Cool/Dr Hot Bags

While we’re on the subject of things looking like drip bags, Suck UK sell these two items.  The Dr Cool bag is filled with Gel that you chill in the fridge, while the Dr Hot bag is one of those hand warmer items that warms up when you click the little silver disc inside it.

Giant Microbes

If you’re into plush, then these are the plush for you!  The problem is deciding which one to get. You can get them in the shape of the flu virus (including the swine flu variant), the Common cold, MRSA, red blood cells, or even the microbe responsible for bad breath! Get them from Firebox.com.

Bonus: Some recommended reading

If you’ve liked this post you might want to add the following sites to your reading list:

• Street Anatomy
• I Heart Guts

Biohazard?! by nickstone333 on Flickr

A few of us from work went to Indigo2 at The O2 recently to see a wonderfully smutty musical performance by Adam Kay and Suman Biswas – better known as The Amateur Transplants.

Adam plays the piano while they both sing along to the tunes of a variety of popular songs. The difference is that these two bright sparks have re-written the lyrics into some dangerously, funny and politically incorrect prose. It is so near the mark at times that they actually score a bulls-eye. I laughed, cringed and wiped the tears away simultaneously. The subject matter frequently prompting me to ask myself in disbelief -‘did they really say that?!’

Both are doctors – they studied medicine at Imperial College London – and this is reflected in many of the lyrics of their songs. It was also very obvious to anyone who eavesdropped at the bar during the interval that the audience was unsurprisingly comprised mostly of doctors, nurses and ambulance staff. Waves of gasps and laughter frequently swept through the crowd in recognition of the all too familiar themes covered in their parodies.

If you are someone who can see laughter in anything then you must definitely not miss them next time they perform near you. However be warned, it is not for the faint-hearted!

Photo courtesy Jon Yates on Flickr

In response to requests from their commissioners, London Ambulance Service NHS Trust (LAS) has decided that they will no longer employ Emergency Care Practitioners (ECPs) as part of their workforce.

Existing ECPs will be transitioned into suitable alternative employment, with the hope that they will contribute their varied skills in their new roles.

Reflecting on this, I was reminded about a talk I gave at NHS Live in 2004 when ECPs were very new. I spoke in a couple of ‘workshops’ with Professor Sir George Alberti about the benefits of Emergency Care Practitioners to the patient and to the NHS.

Sir George was the NHS Tzar for Emergency Care at the time and we did a joint presentation about new developments in emergency care. In particular I gave a case study presentation that illustrated the difference it could make to the patient if an ECP arrived to look after them rather than the traditionally double-crewed ambulance.

I decided to use the case of an elderly lady with a cut to her lower leg who I had been to previously. In this situation an ambulance would normally have conveyed her to hospital for treatment but I described how, as an ECP, I would be able examine and treat her in the home and save her a trip to hospital.

It was a huge event with medical and nursing representatives attending from all over the country; I was really very nervous. Carol Smilie was hosting and Tony Blair was a keynote speaker; no pressure there then! However, it went quite well despite my nerves and lots of people approached me afterwards interested to know more.

The National Archives has a snapshot of the emergency care bulletin that was released at the time. Have any thoughts about this change in workforce configuration? Be sure to leave me a comment.