The Research Reverie
MIAMI — After a 10-year exhaustive study, researchers at the Muller School of Medicine, University of Miami have concluded that emergency medical services across the United States has little or no value to the general health of the public.
“We are unable to find any meaningful benefit for patients who receive care through the EMS system, as compared to holistic, homeopathic or other treatments rendered at their homes,” declared B. Nyoin Tow, MD, with the Glascow Research Center.
“Frankly, with the issue of nosocomial infections within the emergency department and ambulances, we feel the data supports that patients use other forms of transportation to see their physicians after self treatment.”
Dr. Tow advises that people should perform the following steps when confronted with a sudden medical emergency:
- Consult the internet. Using any search engine, type in the symptoms such as, “anaphylaxis”, “sore toe,” “I’m dying” and review the first dozen or so hits. If there is a consensus of what to do, gather the appropriate supplies and review a YouTube video of how to perform the procedure, such as “distill epinephrine in five easy steps”, “Auto defibrillation: you can do it with a car battery” or simply, “Amputation.”
- Always keep simple items around the household, office and car in case of a medical emergency. In addition to band aids, things like towels, sheets, boiling water, penknife for snake bites, butter, bite sticks and chicken soup “Cause it cures everything”
- Hold the victim’s hand and tell them, “Everything will be alright. You’ll be fine.” Repeated enough times, the patient will feel better, right up to the point of losing consciousness. As an added note, if the hand has been amputated following the guidelines laid out on YouTube, stroke the patient’s shoulder instead.
- Carefully but quickly bundle the patient into a car, or cab or other wheeled conveyance and move them to the closest doctor, midwife, massage therapist, dentist or sawmill. Explain to the receiving personnel how you found the therapy on the internet and how they should implement that care.
However, EMS personnel have spoken out against the findings. In a phone interview April 1, Miami Dade Metro Fire EMS Chief Jon W. Hecker pointed to the flashing red and white lights and wail of the siren as being one advantage of using ambulance transport.
“We can part traffic like Moses with the Red Sea, which is like being in a parade,” he said.
“We comfort the patient by making them feel all important and stuff. That’s gotta count for something, right? Bet they didn’t study that!”