EMT Medical Emergencies

The _____ is your awareness and concern for potentially serious underlying and unseen injuries or illnesses.

• nature of illness

• index of suspicion

• general impression

• clinical impression

Assessment of the medical patient is usually focused on the _________.

• nature of illness

• field diagnosis

• associated symptoms

• medical history

Most treatments provided in the prehospital setting are intended to _________.

• confirm the patient's diagnosis

• correct the patient's underlying condition

• address the patient's symptoms

• reduce the need for transport to the hospital

You and your EMT partner arrive at the residence of a 50-year-old man who complains of weakness. Your primary assessment reveals that he is critically ill and will require aggressive treatment. The closest hospital is 25 miles away. You should:

• perform a detailed secondary assessment, assess his vital signs, and then transport rapidly.

• manage all threats to airway, breathing, and circulation and consider requesting an ALS unit.

• administer oxygen via nonrebreathing mask and obtain as much of his medical history as possible.

• load him into the ambulance, begin transport, and perform all treatment en route to the hospital.

When forming your general impression of a patient with a medical complaint, it is important to remember that:

• the majority of medical patients you encounter are also injured.

• it is during the general impression that assessment of the ABCs occurs.

• most serious medical conditions do not present with obvious symptoms.

• the conditions of many medical patients may not appear serious at first.

When caring for a patient with an altered mental status and signs of circulatory compromise, you should:

• limit your time at the scene to 10 minutes or less, if possible.

• perform a detailed secondary assessment prior to transporting the patient.

• transport immediately and begin all emergency treatment en route to the hospital.

• have a paramedic unit respond to the scene if it is less than 15 minutes away.

The determination of whether a medical patient is a high-priority or low-priority transport is typically made:

• once the patient's baseline vital signs are known.

• after the primary assessment has been completed.

• upon completion of a detailed secondary assessment.

• as soon as the patient voices his or her chief complaint.

After sizing up the scene of a patient with a possible infectious disease, your next priority should be to:

• contact medical control

• take standard precautions

• quickly assess the patient

• notify law enforcement

You are attending to a 27-year-old male driver of a car. According to his passenger, the patient had been acting strangely while driving, then slumped forward against the steering wheel, apparently unconscious. The car drove off the road and struck a telephone pole. The patient remains unconscious, and physical assessment reveals only a large hematoma on his right forehead with no other physical signs. Your patient is a diabetic who had been under a lot of stress lately and may have missed meals. This is an example of a:

• medical emergency

• trauma emergency

• combination of a medical and trauma emergency

• combination of a psychiatric and trauma emergency

Your patient has a chronic respiratory condition. His stimulus to breathe is triggered by low oxygen levels in the blood. This is known as the ___________.

• hypoxic drive

• CO2 drive

• alternate drive

• COPD drive