Mike and Jared and the entire FOAMfrat team wish you and your family a happy and safe Thanksgiving. Mike recently returned from a successful hunt and shared a deer heart dissection with his crew at the fire station. I recorded this as a nice review of basic cardiac anatomy. In the spirit of ethical hunting practice, every part of the animal must have a positive impact in some way. I hope that sharing this can benefit you or your co-workers.

We're interviewing James Boomhower from Stay Fit 4 Duty in this episode. We discuss suicidal ideation, therapeutic communication, and verbal de-escalation. If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or are in crisis, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline can be reached at 988. You can text, call, or even use WhatsApp. You can learn more about this lifeline here: https://988lifeline.org

Join Jared and Mike for a listener-submitted case review involving post-intubation cardiac arrest.

Chris Carlstrom is a flight nurse at Life Link III and also works part-time at a ketamine infusion clinic. We’ve had some exciting conversations on shift regarding his experiences with ketamine in the clinic versus emergency medicine, and I finally was able to get one of these conversations recorded for the podcast. Enjoy Podcast 163 - What Can We Learn From A Ketamine Infusion Clinic? w/ Chris Carlstrom.

Jared and Mike sit down with Dr. Bram Duffee to discuss his thoughts on communication in EMS and studies in EMS. Don’t miss this one!

When I became a paramedic, being able to provide pain management was one of the "new interventions" that I looked forward to most. As an EMT, I remember countless times I was without ALS resources and had to watch a patient suffering in pain until we got to the hospital. Trying to obtain any history or perform an assessment on someone writhing in pain can be nearly impossible. As a BLS provider, I would attempt non-pharmacological ways to relieve pain, such as ice packs, warm packs, elevating extremities, and sometimes simply trying to distract them with conversation. While these methods should not be discounted, I will never forget the first time I could provide pain medication to an elderly woman who fell and fractured her hip. I started an IV right there on the floor of the assisted living facility, administered some fentanyl, and comfortably got her to the stretcher. Analgesia did not save this lady's life. Still, it did make her trip to the hospital a little more comfortable and allowed me to obtain an accurate history, including the dizziness and dyspnea she felt before falling. Performing an adequate assessment and obtaining pertinent medical history can be difficult when a patient is experiencing intense pain. For this reason, pain should be managed to a level that allows for comfort & communication. Total pain relief is ideal but may not always be feasible, given hemodynamics and underlying causes. Check out this episode with Tyler & Shane as they discuss multimodal pain management strategies.