Ambulance service: main employees

The team that directly provides emergency care to the sick or injured usually includes 3 employees: a doctor, a paramedic, and an orderly. There may be various deviations from this composition, which is due to the type of the team itself, as well as the number of employees registered to work at this station. For example, to transport a patient from the emergency room to the hospital, you do not need to provide any assistance, so the presence of a doctor is not necessary, a paramedic or an orderly is enough. However, teams that go to road accidents, to cardiological patients or young children must consist of all the necessary employees (including an ambulance doctor).

Often, due to the lack of personnel in the teams, there are no orderlies, so the transfer of patients on stretchers has to be carried out by doctors and paramedics themselves, sometimes they are helped by drivers of special vehicles. Each of the employees carries out a certain type of activity within the framework of providing ambulance services to the population.

Ambulance surgeon

The ambulance doctor is the most important person in the team, who is responsible for its work. They must have a higher medical education in the specialty “emergency medical care”, regularly undergo professional development and confirm their professional suitability.

They examine a sick or injured person, talk to them, their relatives, or witnesses of the incident. As soon as possible, he must determine the main diagnosis that caused the sharp deterioration of the condition. After that, it decides what the emergency plan should be. Unlike an ambulance paramedic, the doctor makes the main decision: whether the patient or victim needs to be admitted to a hospital, or whether they can continue therapy at home under the supervision of a local doctor. Also, if necessary, the doctor of the line team can call a specialized team (resuscitation, cardiology, emergency psychiatric care).

An ambulance doctor is a hard and responsible job that not everyone can do. Constant night shifts, the need to make vital decisions in a matter of seconds, the ability to navigate in extreme conditions and cope with various conflict situations make this specialty one of the most difficult in General, and in medicine in particular.

Ambulance paramedic

An ambulance paramedic is a doctor’s chief assistant when providing emergency care to patients or injured people. He is the” right hand ” of the doctor, as he performs all the necessary medical manipulations that the doctor considers necessary (injections, bandages, pressure measurement, etc.). However, in some teams, the ambulance paramedic is the only employee who makes the diagnosis, decides on treatment tactics, and performs all the necessary manipulations. This is the case in small cities, towns and villages, as well as when there is a shortage of personnel among emergency doctors at stations.

An ambulance paramedic has a secondary special education in the relevant specialty, which gives him a special status: higher than a nurse or brother, but lower than a doctor. In the presence of the latter, it performs the functions of a nurse, and in the absence of a doctor. A paramedic, as well as a doctor, must regularly improve their skills, meet ambulance standards, and improve their professional skills.
Other personnel

In addition to the doctor and paramedic, emergency teams also include other employees who help them in their work. These include Junior medical personnel (orderlies) and drivers of special ambulances.

Orderlies help carry patients and injured people, fix violent patients (emergency psychiatric care), maintain order in the car and perform various tasks of doctors and paramedics. Ambulance drivers should be able to deliver a serious patient to a hospital as quickly as possible without creating an emergency on the road, monitor the condition of the car, and be well-oriented in the locality so as not to waste precious minutes searching for the right house or entrance. Sometimes the driver can also be a medic, which is very common.

Types of ambulance teams

Given the nature of the pathology that caused the ambulance to be called, a certain type of team is sent to it. If there are indications (if the patient’s condition and the expected diagnosis differ from the one that was initially assumed by the dispatcher), the doctor or paramedic can call specialists from another specialized team so that they can more adequately help the sick or injured person. For example, a General medical team is sent to call an ambulance to a person with acute shoulder pain. If on arrival this symptom turns out to be a manifestation of a myocardial infarction, the doctor calls the cardiology team, if the patient’s condition requires resuscitation measures, then at the same time they ask for reinforcements from the resuscitation team.
General ambulance service

General emergency medical care can be provided by both a paramedic and a medical team. This depends on the size of the locality, the complexity of the call, and the staffing situation at the station (substation).

A General medical team consists of 1-2 paramedics and a driver (who often also performs the functions of an orderly).

Usually these teams go to patients in villages/towns where there are no doctors at all, or they do not work around the clock. They provide any type of medical care regardless of the severity of the disease of patients or victims.

The General medical team consists of a classic staff: a doctor, a paramedic, and a medic / driver.

She goes to all non-heavy calls that are supposedly the cause of the emergency call. These include high fever, back pain (leg, arm, chest, or stomach), hypertensive crises, various types of injuries and burns, poisoning, and so on. In a situation where the patient’s condition differs from the initial one, the doctor can call for reinforcements in the form of a specialized team.

Despite the fact that emergency care is provided free of charge under the CHI program, in large cities, paid ambulance services provided privately are gaining popularity. Usually the composition of such teams includes the classic three: doctor, paramedic, orderlies, and their nature is General.

Pediatric team

Small patients always deserve special attention. Therefore, they should be assisted by specialists who have the skills to work with children, taking into account the specifics of diseases and injuries that they have. Emergency care for a child is provided by a specialized pediatric team, which includes a pediatrician, paramedic and Junior staff, or a pediatrician, nurse and Junior staff.

A pediatrician should know the specifics of the most common emergency conditions in Pediatrics, taking into account the specific age of the patient and, of course, the individual dosage of medicines. An ambulance is necessary for a child with various injuries (fractures, burns, bruises, sprains), feverish conditions, complications of viral infections (laryngostenosis, bronchoobstructive conditions, febrile convulsions), diarrhea and vomiting, consequences of road accidents, electric shocks, etc.

A special type of children’s ambulance – neonatal resuscitation-helps the youngest patients (the first month of life) who have life-threatening conditions.

Emergency psychiatric care

Emergency psychiatric care is a special type of medical care. Employees of this team perform extremely important functions-apply various measures in relation to patients suffering from mental disorders in the acute stage. Most often, these are acute psychoses with various hallucinations (auditory, visual, etc.). in this state, a person can be dangerous both for himself and for others.

In addition, the help of a psychiatric team may be required for people who are under the influence of drugs, alcohol delirium, severe depression, or with active suicidal attempts. It always consists of 1-2 nurses who help to fix such patients, since in a state of psychosis they can actively resist medical workers and pose a danger.

Resuscitation team

The resuscitation team provides emergency care to patients who are in an extremely serious life-threatening condition. It must include a doctor-anesthesiologist-resuscitator and 2 nurses-anesthetists( nurses), sometimes paramedics work instead of them.

For movement, they use a special class C car (reanimobile), equipped with everything necessary for resuscitation. It is usually painted in a bright color (yellow) so that drivers of other cars can more easily notice it and give way to it. The resuscitation team arrives at the scene (or at the home of a seriously ill person) as soon as possible (within a few minutes). An ambulance for a child who is in a critical condition (asphyxia, convulsions, cardiac arrest, the consequences of a serious accident) is provided by a special resuscitation pediatric team.

The team can be found here

People who need urgent medical care do not always live in cities and towns that have ambulance stations or substations. In our country, there are many small localities (villages, villages) that are located at a fairly large distance from the nearest medical facility. Sometimes they are separated by hundreds of kilometers, rivers and lakes that can’t be crossed. In this case, to provide assistance, there are special air medical teams that can transport a heavy patient from the hinterland to the Central district or regional hospital. The composition of the team consists of an anesthesiologist-resuscitator, paramedic, nurse anaesthetist and nurse.

Calling an ambulance is The easiest and most effective way to contact medical professionals in the event of an emergency. However, in order for doctors to arrive at the person in need as soon as possible, you need to know what information to tell the dispatcher who receives calls.

To do this, you must specify the following important data:

Gender, age of the patient or victim,
Symptoms that make you resort to the help of emergency doctors,
the Exact address with the number of the house, the entrance, the code from the intercom, features that can make it difficult for the team to get into the house (special numbering, security guards, obstacles in the yard).

After all these parameters are specified, you need to listen to information from the dispatcher. It will tell you how soon the ambulance will arrive and what urgent measures can be taken independently before it arrives.