In EMS they pretty much go hand in hand. As I’ve said before, it’s a coping mechanism. The key is to keep it pretty much inside the ambulance or at least out of public view. Laughing at patients in front of them is a career limiting move, especially in these days of ubiquitous camera coverage. Still, it does offer stress relief when we can make fun of a class of patients in a totally caring, sensitive, sort of way.

Which brings us to today’s post.

My service recently acquired a “bariatric unit”. Actually, we already had the ambulance, it was just sent out to a vendor for modification into a bariatric ambulance. The modifications consisted of reinforcing the floor, installing an electric winch, and setting up attachment points for a ramp. Oh, and buying a bariatric stretcher. For those of you who don’t know, bariatric is a medical term for extremely obese. Currently we have access to ramps which can be used to roll this class of patient, which is fortunately small but, no pun intended, getting larger each year. Someone decided that we need a special ambulance, but of course we have no idea when, how, or why it will be deployed. No doubt an appropriate policy will be forthcoming to confuse guide us.

I’m equally sure that management will come up with some sensitive call sign for this specialized ambulance and being the helper bee that I am, I’d like to suggest one. So, I sent out an email to a bunch of friends of mine who are involved in EMS and solicited their ideas. Some of them were pretty amusing, but in a totally inappropriate way.

One wag suggested “Rainbow Warrior”. Actually he suggested it not only to me, but to his own bosses when his system bought a bariatric ambulance. At last report they had determined it was insensitive.

Another suggested “Shamu One”. I’m sure that the Killer Whale advocates will be in touch with him.

EFB was another suggestion, but without an exact explanation what the acronym meant. I’ll leave it to the readers imagination.

I think you get the point. All kind of humorous, but not tremendously original. For that I’m going to claim the prize with my idea. If you’re a WWII history buff, you’ll get the joke immediately. If you aren’t, you’ll have to do a little research. I suspect that Old NFO, Borepatch, JayG, and several of my other regular readers will know and understand the reference immediately.

My idea,

Bock’s Car.

Please note. If you are one of those people with out any sense of humor, please save the electrons in sending me a highly indignant email or comment. I’ve transported a lot of bariatric patients, even before there was a term for them, and they all are very realistic about their situation. Most of them have a pretty good sense of humor about it too.