awaremedic

Everybody seems to be thinking the same thing that I am. Biting my tongue and biding my time until I've developed some relationships in the company and if need be I can deal with it then. In all honesty, though, as I said, he usually comes off as a pretty good guy and he does seem to be a good medic, so I expect it's largely just taking my lumps as the new guy and it will eventually all work itself out.

I had written a novel about this and I just deleted it in favor of brevity. I just started at a new service after being at my last one for 10 years or so. I've been a paramedic since 1997. The first crew they stuck me with for my "evaluation" consists of an EMT (she's awesome), and, obviously, a paramedic. Now, don't get me wrong, he seems like a pretty decent guy, as well. But he also seems a little...cocky. I'm still getting to know people, so I admit that maybe I'm way off base, here. Now, I can't say when this guy finished school, but I can say that his EMT number is about 8,000 or so people newer than mine, so it's probably safe to say I've been doing this longer than he has. I'm also aware that to insinuate that this automatically makes me a better medic than he would be to commit a logical fallacy, and that's not what I'm trying to say, to be clear. But, anyway, we go on a couple of calls, we get back to the station, I'm doing paperwork and trying to get the ins and outs of their computer system. I take the laptop into dispatch, where he's sitting, with about 7 other people, to ask some questions, mainly about the documentation system. So, he starts reading my narrative, adopts what sounds to my ears like a kind of haughty tone of voice, and says that "everything looks pretty good" but that I need to "avoid using the word 'denies' because this means that a patient has a finding, like a broken finger, but they won't admit to it. They 'deny' having a broken finger. Also, you have a lot of misspelled words." Ok. I'm the new guy. I bit down on my tongue, said, "ah, okay", took back the computer, and went back to the lounge. That crawled all over me. Is that wrong, on my part? First, I'm completely anal when it comes to spelling, especially in my documentation. I went back and checked and there were no misspelled words. Secondly, I understand what he's saying about the word "deny", or "denies." I do. But I'm also quite certain that "to reply in the negative" is a common and accepted definition of the word. I've been using it in my documentation since 1997 (pt denies Cx pain; pt denies dyspnea, etc.) w/out issue. So, that's it, basically. I wrote all of this to ask what you think of the word "denies" in documentation. And, I guess, if it makes me petty that this persons behavior bothered me. If you think this is bad, you should have seen the first novel I wrote.