Just Give Me A Reason: Pearls and Pitfalls of EMS and Fire Refusals and Lift-Jobs
Patient refusals and lift-jobs are an essential part of fire and EMS response, but they also provide high-risk, life-threatening, and potentially career ending medicolegal scenarios for first responders, EMTs, and paramedics. While this class will touch on the process of taking refusals or AMAs, including how to perform decisional capacity assessments for informed refusals of consent, challenging cases in fire and EMS will be presented with a focus on how things can go south pretty quickly if your mind's eye is not fully engaged and if you don't consider the possibilities you may be facing when doing a lift or taking a refusal. Some of the cases to be presented will address poisoning or toxicologic emergencies, disaster and mass-casualty scenarios, and subtle or atypical presentations of respiratory and cardiac emergencies.
