Ho there. I've been reading your blog for a while, courtesy of it's RSS feed in Livejournal. It's always interesting reading other people's experiences and perspectives on prehospital care from around the world. :)

For the medical people out there, the dosage is 2.5mg over two minutes, repeated every 5 minutes (I may have to amend this later, I've left the information chart at home).

2.5 mg isn't huge, you're right, but it's not completely piddling either. Melbourne's Metropolitan Ambulance Service (MAS) only allows its staff to give doses of 2.5 mg, despite the Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG - and what I hope is a working link below) stating that doses of between 2.5 and 5 mg may be give, up to a maximum of 20 mg before a consult is required. The Rural Ambulance Service (RAV) that serves the rest of the state of Victoria is less restrictive on the dosages given within the range outlined by the CPG, partially because of longer trnasport times. In both cases it's been noted that our inhaled analgesic methoxyflurane ('Penthrane') and MS seem to have a synergistc effect, working especially well for acute pain from injuries such as burns. I suspect that you'd get a similar effect while using it with 'Entonox' or similar drugs.

What has been done right is that the drug comes in pre-filled syringes. We won't have to faff around with needles, bottles of water, and shaking up bottles of powder. Instead it is a simple process to pull out a syringe, flip off the top and give the patient some pain relief.

Nice. I wish we had a few more drugs presented that way. At the present moment the only one that comes prepackaged like that is naloxone ('Narcan'). It would save a whole lot of faffing about. Muddling up drug calculations is one of the things that really gives me nightmares, and anything that minimises that risk makes me very, very happy. CPG Drug Info on Mophine Sulphate