Features

Paramedic opportunities at the University of Worcester

‘By providing mentorship for the students, it encourages them to critically analyze incidents and recieve rapid feedback on their progression’.

A review of the pre-ROSC intranasal cooling effectiveness study

With the publication of the 2010 European Resuscitation Council Guidelines (Nolan et al, 2010) late last year, the use of therapeutic hypothermia was recommended for the first time as part of the...

Resuscitation from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in an under-resourced environment

South Africa is a developing country with an upper-middle-income and advanced emerging market economy (The World Bank, 2010; FTSE, 2010). In 2009, inflation-adjusted income per person in South Africa...

Mental health in the care of paramedics: part 2

The lifetime course of bipolar disorder is characterized by interspersed episodes of mania and depression. It has a lifetime prevalence of approximately 1–2% (Bebbington and Ramana, 1995) and usually...

Air ambulance tasking: why and how?

Given the expense and potential hazard of air ambulance operations, there has to be a sound rationale for their use. Generally, air ambulances can confer four broad categories of benefit..

The paramedic kairotope theory: methodology and rationale

In order to understand what expert paramedics do at emergency scenes from the paramedics’ point of view, this inquiry focused on the level of the individual practitioner (micro). The...

Acute stroke management: an online course

Between February 2006 and July 2009, 1446 emergency health professionals completed the RESPONSE course, 570 (39%) completed the course evaluation and these are the results that will now be presented..

Evaluation of the use of portfolios in paramedic practice: part 2

‘The competence of professionals derives from their possessing a set of relevant attributes such as knowledge, skills and attitudes. These attributes which jointly underlie competence are often...

New cardiac arrest guidelines: implications for paramedic practice

Despite much media hype, compression-only CPR is only effective for short periods in individuals who suffer a sudden primary cardiac arrest. Recent studies suggest conventional CPR has better overall...

Smallpox and the origins of vaccination

The smallpox virus (variola major) is a member of the family Poxviridae and the genus orthopoxvirus, which also includes vaccinia and monkeypox. Poxviruses are the largest viruses that cause infection...