EMS Purity Test

This is version 1.30 [310 questions], 25th October 2000.

Copyright: this test may be freely reproduced (and extended!) elsewhere as long as you include a link to its home at http://www.suslik.org/Humour/FirstAid/purity.html.

To get your first aid "purity score", count the number of times you say "yes" to the following questions. Subtract this number from 310 and divide by 3.1 to get your first aid "purity score" in percent. Someone who answers "yes" 155 times would therefore score 50% and be pretty pure, whereas someone who answered "yes" 279 times would score 10% and be pretty depraved.

You can see what your score makes you in the table here.

Thanks among others to Chloë Barnett, Nick Creagh, and Rhona Cox.

Courses

Have you ever taken a Basic Life Support course?
...a Paediatric Basic Life Support course?
...an Emergency Aid course?
...First Aid at Work course?
...an First Aid at Work refresher?
...an Oxygen Therapy course?
...an EMT-B / Ambulance Aid / similar course?
...a defib training course?
...an Advanced Life Support course?
...PHEC?
...a Paediatric ALS course?
...a Neonatal ALS course?
...an Advanced Trauma Life Support, PHTLS or similar course?
...the NHS paramedic course?
...a first aid instructor's course?
...taught a first aid course?
...taught a first aid instructor's course?
...examined a first aid course?
......failed at least one candidate?
......passed no more than one candidate?
...failed a first aid course?
...failed the retake?
...written a first aid course?
...had it approved by a governmental organisation (e.g. HSE)?
Casualties (patients)
Have you ever treated a casualty?
...more than 5 casualties?
...more than 10?
...in one day?
...at one incident?
Have you ever been a casualty yourself?
...while on duty?
...after having been injured by another first aider?
Do you know Adrian Hilton's "three causes" rule?
...do you agree with it?
...have you ever treated an exception to it?
Can you differentiate between vegetarian and carnivore vomit?
...do you like doing it?
...can you distinguish between vegetarians and vegans?
Do you agree that God protects fools and drunks?
...and children?
...but not first aiders?
Injuries
Have you ever treated a cut finger?
...a nose bleed (epistaxis)?
...a sprain / strain?
...a fracture?
...multi-system trauma?
...poisoning (non-alcohol)?
...anaphylaxis?
...a spinal cord injury?
...a heart attack?
...heart and lung failure?
...respiratory arrest?
...full cardiac arrest?
Have you ever treated a faint (syncope)?
...did they come round quickly?
...did they insist on sitting up?
...did they faint again?
...did you catch them?
...did they insist they were ok, go away, only to be brought back a few minutes later having fainted again?
...were they from the same family as a casualty you'd previously treated that night?
Have any of your casualties died?
...was it your fault?
...did anyone prove it was your fault?
...are you still serving the prison sentence?
Have you ever refused to treat an injury because it wasn't interesting enough?
...did it turn out to be very interesting nevertheless?
Have you ever resuscitated someone?
...successfully?
...did they come back with defibrillation?
...did you manage to shock an annoying bystander?
Acronyms and Mnemonics
Do you know what PFO stands for?
...PGD?
...IBM? (no, it's not International Business Machines)
...EMT?
...DRSABC?
...DRSACBCDEFGHIJKL?
...FISH SHAPED?
...CHUNDERED?
...stat?
Have you invented a new first aid-related acronym or mnemonic?
...do people still use it?
People (UK-based, I'm afraid!)
Have you ever met Lucy Belson?
...Mike Ward?
...Pauline Howard?
...Pat Conaghan?
...Dave Skinner?
...Phil Hormbrey?
...Tim Hodgetts?
...Fiona Moore?
...John Black?
...a HEMS paramedic?
...a HEMS registrar?
...May Yeung?
...James Allport?
...Tariq Qureshi?
...Adrian Hilton?
...Richard Ward?
......are you still on speaking terms?
Kit
Have you ever played with a spinal board?
...in water?
...with a Lifesaving group?
...as the casualty?
Have you ever seen a cigarette burn in 15 l.p.m. of oxygen?
Have you ever inhaled Entonox (Nitronox)?
...did you like it?
...did you empty the cylinder?
Have you ever charged 200?
...did you stand clear?
...did anyone hang on to the trolley?
...did you shock them?
...did they mind?
Have you ever gone upstairs on a carry chair?
...gone downstairs?
...backwards?
Can you fold a blanket?
...the St. John Ambulance way?
...the Red Cross way?
...does the Quartermaster make you re-fold them?
Have you ever stabbed yourself?
...someone else?
...did they mind?
...did they notice?
...did it help?
...did you do it again 10 minutes later?
Events
Have you ever first aided at a theatre?
...at a concert?
...at a university ceremony?
...did you stop it to treat a casualty?
...was it the Vice Chancellor?
Have you ever first aided at a river event?
...did anyone there get hypothermia?
...was it you?
Have you ever first aided at a college Ball (Prom)?
...all night?
...two nights in a row?
...and gone to a garden party in between?
Have you ever first aided at a rugby / football / similar match?
...did you spend more time on the pitch than off it?
...was this on a day when you didn't feel like having any casualties?
Have you ever first aided at an orgy?
...were you invited as a guest?
...did you learn a lot?
...did you catch anything?
...do you have the photographs?
...are you planning an early retirement?
Internet
Have you browsed OUFAU's web pages at http://users.ox.ac.uk/~firstaid/ ?
...did you contribute to them?
Have you written your own first aid web pages?
...do they link to OUFAU's?
...do OUFAU's pages link to yours?
Do you subscribe to a first aid mailing list?
...do you run it?
Does your first aid / EMS group run on e-mail?
First Aid Groups
Have you ever belonged to St. John Ambulance?
...the Red Cross?
...St. Andrew's Ambulance?
...BAEMT?
...OUFAU?
...a community EMS group?
...worked as a healthcare professional?
...did you resign?
...were you thrown out?
Have you ever been on the committee of a student first aid group?
...as Chairman?
...as Secretary?
...holding more than one post?
...at once?
Sayings
Do you agree that "shallow gene pool" should be a valid diagnosis?
..."too stupid to live"?
..."gravity attack"?
..."rugby/football player"?
Do you shout for help?
Do you use a personalised Primary Survey?
...Secondary Survey?
...handover protocol?
Do you think BLS should be renamed BDS?
...or that it stands for "Buggerit, Let's Shock"?
Do you refer to people with breathing difficulties as "smurfs"?
Treatments
Can you put on a hand bandage?
...two hand bandages?
...on yourself?
Can you put on a head bandage?
...did it stay on when pulled?
...did the casualty's head?
Do you give drugs?
...do you charge the casualty?
...full street value?
Do you shun improvised collars?
Do you use Tuff-cuts?
Do you sleep in the old recovery position?
...the new recovery position?
...with an OP airway in position?
...with an NP airway in position?
Can you do 1-person CPR for 15+minutes?
...at 4 cycles of 2:15 per minute?
...for 30 minutes?
...on two Resusci-Annies at once?
Alcohol
Do you know the 6-point scale of intoxication?
...the 20 point scale?
...ever had a casualty score above 14?
......above 17?
......below 2?
Ever devised your own intoxication rating system?
...extended it to cover illegal drugs?
...had it adopted as a standard?
Have you ever been drunk yourself?
...in the presence of a first aider?
...were they drunk too?
...were you hung-over?
...did you use your own hangover cure?
...did it work?
Can you diagnose what alcohol has been drunk from vomit?
...does this cause people to shun you socially?
Incident Exercises
Have you ever participated in an incident exercise?
...as a minor casualty?
...as a major casualty?
...as a first aider?
...as a bystander?
Have you ever organised an incident exercise?
...was it based on a real life event?
...did you traumatise the first aiders?
...was this the aim?
Have you ever spent more than £60 ($100) on make-up?
...did you need it after the Treasurer had finished with you?
Have you ever been injured on an incident exercise?
...injured someone else?
......and not noticed?
Are you scared of rabbits?
...of quiet casualties?
...of Rachel Healey?
...of Chloë Barnett?
Do you have your own fake vomit recipe?
...is it worse than the real thing?
...does it involve chicken soup and carrots?
...do you microwave (nuke) it for realistic warmth?
Have you ever acted hysterical?
...did you fool anyone?
...did it turn into the real thing?
Have you ever walked into an incident exercise organised by someone else?
...not noticed?
...did the casualty mind?
...did the ambulance service mind?
Resusci-Anne
Have you ever resuscitated Annie?
...Annie Junior?
...Baby Annie?
...Ambu-Man?
...did they recover?
Can you change Annie's lungs?
...have you ever tried this with a real casualty?
Have you ever resuscitated an Annie Skillmeter?
...and got 100%?
...for 4 cycles in a row?
...without looking at the screen?
Have you played with an airway trainer?
...an IV trainer?
...a chest decompression / surgical airway trainer?
...a dead sheep?
...a gynaecological trainer?
Books And Periodicals
Have you got the UK 7th Edition Resuscitation Manual?
...the revised 6th Edition?
...more than 4 different editions?
Do you read the resuscitation articles in the BMJ?
...so do you know why Finns are more fertile than Brits?
Do you own more than 5 different first aid / medicine-related books?
...more than 10?
...a book on ECG interpretation?
ALS Skills
Can you intubate?
...in under 30 seconds?
...in under 15 seconds?
...and always avoid the right main bronchus and stomach?
Can you interpret 3-lead ECGs?
...12 lead ECGs?
...locate the site of an infarct from a 12-lead reading?
...tell the difference between a lead and an electrode?
Can you fly an automatic defib?
...a manual defib?
...do you think AEDs are for lightweights?
Can you get peripheral venous access?
...central access?
...intraosseous access?
...do you refuse to put drugs down the ET tube?
Emergency Services
Have you ever dialled 999 for the ambulance?
...dialled 112?
...dialled 911?
......in the UK?
......did you get through anyway?
...dialled 999/112/911 more than once in one day?
Have you met an NHS ambulance technician?
...an NHS paramedic?
...a US paramedic?
...a HEMS paramedic?
...a HEMS registrar?
Have you handed over a casualty?
...did the crew listen?
...did you give them a casualty form?
......did they read it?
...did you make a diagnosis which they ignored?
......were you proven right later?
Have you travelled in an ambulance with a casualty?
...travelled as a casualty?
...with blues and twos going?
...travelled in G-HEMS?
The Purity Test
Have you taken this test before?
...have you dropped more than 5% since last time?
...were you deliberately trying to lower your score in between?
Have you encouraged someone else to take this test?
...did they turn out less pure than you were?
......by more than 10%?
Have you ever met anyone less than 25% pure?
...could you tell immediately?

Evaluating Your Score

90-100%: Oh dear, still very much an innocent. Go and do a First Aid at Work course to pick up some basic first aid ethos. Better yet, go join a first aid group and meet the public...
80-90%: You're starting on that long road to being an experienced first aider. You need to meet some casualties; go to a rugby match and take your pocket mask!
70-80%: Aha, you're starting to get somewhere. Go and play with an Annie or two, you know you want to really.
60-70%: You're probably at the limit of good taste here. You're on the edge of the precipice; do you jump, or do you rush down to the bottom with a set of collars and non-rebreather oxygen set?
50-60%: If you haven't taken your EMT / Ambulance 2 / AFA exam yet, then you ought to be thinking hard about it. You probably also ought to be thinking about what it means to have a life outside first aid...
40-50%: Not bad, a grizzled veteran's score. If you're not holding down a post in a first aid group by now, why not?
30-40%: Good grief, you've been around the block a few times. You must mutter "airway-c-spine-breathing-circulation" in your sleep by now.
20-30%: You're about as impure as the guy who wrote this. Well done!
10-20%: You sick, depraved first aider you. Have you considered a career in the Ambulance Service? Actually, you're probably there already and lecturing on BASICS courses...
0-10%: You've counted the number of "no"'s, haven't you? Berk. Go back and re-read the instructions... If you're still reading this, you probably need professional help. Go register for a medical degree, it's your only hope.

Home → Humour → First Aid

Web pages maintained by Adrian Hilton