Adventures in online Medical Control

"Hey this is Paramedic Survivor from Rural Ambulance in the back hills of Town-with-plenty-of-Sick-People, who is this?"

"This is Dr. White"

"How do you spell that?"

"Like the color"

"Oh...We are currently doing CPR on a 67 year old male for over 20 minutes now, unknown down time, the patient is intubated with etc02 of 20s-30s. We've given 5 rounds of epi, half an amp of d50, an amp of sodium bicarb, and the patient has been in asystole the whole time. I'm looking for permission to terminate efforts"

"Um, okay...hold on a sec"

Pause.

Pause.

Pause.

Pause.

Probably a minute and a half goes by.

"What do the patient's pupils look like"

"Fixed and Dilated."

"Is there family there, what do they want you to do?"

"I've spoken to his wife, and she is comfortable with us stopping"

"Okay...um...I think...yeah you can terminate efforts....you've done everything you could...I....it's appropriate....There isn't anything else you could have done"

I appreciate the (somewhat unnecessary) caring and empathic tone. It's 1:30 in the morning.

It's always fun to figure out whether the Doc that picks up the phone is an attending or new resident.

Like the one time the Doctor told me "Do whatever you need to make him comfortable" when I called after I used up all my standing order pain meds.

We call a line that is recorded, I think it would be fun to listen to some of the conversations.