Reviews by Norm Rooker, EMT-P

At last year's EMS EXPO in Las Vegas, NV, former street medic, current ED physician and EMS educator Bryan Bledsoe handed me a copy of the premiere edition of the National Paramedic Institute's video CE program, Medic Monthly, which was reviewed by Thom Dick in the November 2003 issue of EMS.

Medic Monthly is a subscription video education series designed for fire departments, rescue and first aid squads, EMS agencies and ambulance services. It costs $60 per person per year up to the first 50 copies and is discounted after that. Included in the price are eight installments of an incredibly well-written, produced and dramatized video education program that features a major theme/call, plus brief bullets or sections on such topics as hazmat, professionalism on calls, medic fitness and even firehouse cooking.

The opening subject of this series is cardiac asthma. The video begins with an everyday life scene that suddenly turns into a medical emergency. The story immediately drew me in, as the medics responded to, evaluated and treated the elderly patient. As the call unfolds, the action occasionally cuts away to Dr. Steve Katz, a well-known ED physician, EMS educator and director for this program. Katz presents salient clinical points for the initial size-up, BLS assessment, differential clinical points, BLS and ALS treatments and the reasons for each of them, teaching viewers through the scene.

The tape includes actual lung sounds, along with explanations by the paramedics treating the patients. After each clinical point or pearl, the call progresses to the next one. By completion of the run, I realized I had received an excellent presentation at the first responder, BLS and ALS levels on cardiac asthma.

The subscription also includes a pretest, post-test, bibliography and other pertinent factors, such as a printout of the patient's EKG.

I've seen a number of video CE programs over the years, and I think the folks at the National Paramedic Institute have definitely gotten it right. For more information, visit www.paramedicinstitute.com, or call 800/671-9411.

Interested in reality programming? Have I got two shows for you.

The first one, Living Dangerously, is on the National Geographic Channel. The episode I watched featured a volunteer firefighter who jumped off New York City's Tappan Zee Bridge into the Hudson River in an attempt to rescue a suicidal female who had just leapt off. Included in that segment was an interview with a trauma surgeon who specialized in the study of jumpers and gave a nice explanation on survivability being dependent on how the victim/rescuer hits the water. Another segment featured a small-plane pilot who crashed in the mountains of southwestern Colorado. He helped get his two friends out of the airplane and then discovered what many folks learn belatedly, that cell phone service is very poor in the mountains. He hiked out through the snow to get help. Hours later, he made it to a trail head and was able to activate a SAR mission for his two friends. I found this to be an enjoyable show that I would watch again, despite its slightly slow pace.

The second is Critical Rescue on the Discovery Health Channel, a one-hour presentation of an actual incident via live footage, re-creations, computer animations and interviews with key players, victims and victims' families.

Part of what I like about Critical Rescue is its equal emphasis on the medical aspect and the rescue itself. While some of the recreations are a little cheap, and some explanations overly simplified for the general public, the show's quality is almost good enough to request CE for it. Some of the incidents covered include a 1996 trench wall collapse in Margate, FL, that killed one worker, slightly injured and entrapped another and temporarily buried two more, and the 1998 Sedgewick County, KS, grain elevator explosion.