Wackie

This is a super secret black ninja program the government has begun to help with population control. Shhhh...don't tell anyone I told you.

EMT-B trainee here. I'm not even worried about the written test. I can pass the freaking test. I'm worried about when they hand me my card and send me on my way to save lives. We're required one 12 hour shift in an ED then three 12 hour shifts on the ambulance with a minimum of three transports combined. I have one 12 hour shift left and I've had two transports and a grand total of three medical calls (one of which was a woman who died in her sleep-not much to do there). This next station I go to for my last shift is slower than the ones I've been at. There's not a single way in hell that I'll be ready for "out there". :shock: I think basics need more clinical experience before being turned loose. I'm required to get just one more transport, and I tell ya I wouldn't want some newbie EMT with the amount of experience I've had to be dealing with my chest pain. :shock: God help my partner :roll:

baha! :laughing4:

You're also allowed to "pass gas".

Good, golly! I've driven through less populated cities!

I would say if they fessed up, yes. If they play stupid then it's hearsay and you can't really go by that.

You can go to the lab and get poked.

*standing up and applauding* I'm a woman and far from being pissed off. Women who piss and moan about equal rights then retract that when the going gets tough deserve a swift kick in the pants followed by a "Suck it up and get your a** moving or get back in the kitchen" lecture.

I must be crazy since I'm sitting here wishing I could ride with you guys. "Show me everything you know" :laughing4:

Mine was bad enough they taped the picture side down to the paper. So that the back was showing. That's just harsh. :shock:

Thanks for all of the replies. I think I've got it down now. What I think I did was trust that the others were doing their jobs and I focused on mine and was able to block out the rest of the scene, to the extent of being able to perform my job (as well as I could lol). I just happened to get one of the better patients who also did not require the care the others did. I need some experience under my belt to aid in making judgement calls like some of the 15 year vetrans could on scene as well as more training. Looking back, I could have done a better assessment, and there are a few other things I know I could have done better. My next run, I'll keep that in mind and make sure I use the experience to do better. As for now, I have something else to obsess about. I just got my new driver's licence in the mail. :shock: Why they let me out in public, I don't know.

I'm about half way through the course. That no feeling of urgency is what is bothering me. Command wasn't set up very well. They had five on the ground and took a little while to ask for help. We heard the call and knew we'd go. We went ahead and started that way. They radioed and sent us out without lights and sirens. We were half way there when we went full lights and sirens. When we got there, they had just started to triage. And as I think about it, when we stepped out onto the scene I was rushing. I was rushing to the patient and to assess and splint him. So, perhaps since our patient was stable and doing really well is why I didn't get that feeling anymore. Or because the medics I worked with seemed so calm? I dunno. It's what I'm trying to work out to learn from. It's getting harder for me to go back and remember everything. It kind of sucks that we're on spring break now so I won't see my instructor until next week. The no lights and sirens to the ER was a call made by the medics I rode with as well as the patient. The medic drove the speed limit and the patient kept asking us to slow down "We're in no hurry". One of the medics asked if a certain hospital was alright with him and he refused and asked to be transported to a different hospital which was about fifteen minutes away. That hospital is a trauma III btw. The nurse I spoke to said he needed to go to a trauma I because of the three that were flown. So, I'm kind of dealing with that too because I'm a little confused. We haven't gone over trauma yet. Just from reading ahead, I thought an open compound fracture was a critical patient. Especially one like that. You could see tendons, bones, and fatty tissue. His shoe was filled with blood. His blood pressure was a little low but a slow drip brought it up quickly. I hate that I didn't start coming up with all of this while I was at the station.

I did my first ride out yesterday. The very first call was for a lady who died in her sleep. She had signs of rigor so we gave our condolences and left. No big deal. My next call was freaking crazy. A mass casualty incident. Three patients flown, two transported who were also critical. We needed more hands on scene, we later discussed. Our medic crew got split up to help with an extrication. Our box got raped and we waited on scene with a really bad open compound ankle fracture for thirty minutes longer than we should have while waiting for our cot to come back. Anyway, I was given a pat on the back for not losing my head or anything. I chalk it up to ignorance because I don't think it hit me until today just how bad that scene was. I knew one of the patients flown arrested at the ER within an hour of his arrival. I saw him on scene when he was struggling to breathe. We transported our patient to a hospital I do some volunteer work for. Today, I asked the nurse how the patient's doing. He might not ever be able to walk on it again. She then told me all three which were flown died. So, that's three out of five total. As I did mindless volunteer work, I started thinking about it. Previously, I had hashed out in my head what I could have done better and things like that. But, I realized today that I hadn't had a clue as to how bad that scene was. I remember seeing the urgency in everyone's eyes but for some reason I didn't feel that as much. Perhaps it's just because I'm a student on my first call so my judgement isn't honed yet. Or perhaps I was simply focused on my patient. But then perhaps when I saw all of the patients on the ground when sizing up the scene, they were compensating at the time and at a glance they didn't look as bad as they were. So maybe it's a lesson in realizing how much patients can compensate. I never did see the two who had to be extracted from the vehicles. We brought our patient into the medic and went to work on him, so I wasn't out on the scene much. He was critical, but not to the point of running lights and sirens to the ER. It just bugs me that I didn't seem to know how bad that scene was. Any input is appreciated.

I can't believe how frustrated I am at one of my class mates. This person falls asleep in class, never tucks in their shirt (we have a uniform we're to wear), doesn't always follow uniform code, cheats off the person next to her who recently requested to move... And they want to be a nurse :shock: They can't do clinicals right now because their grade is too low. How f-ing hard is it to wear the uniform and act like a respectful human being?!?! For the record, I leave my phone in the car when I go to class.

No checks and balances really. Although, we are allowed to complain to our instructor. To me, it's like taddling and I don't want to be *that* big of a baby. Pissing off the charge nurse effected my scores for the clinical, I think. She's the one to score me. We get scored 1-5, five being the highest, on different aspects such as knowledge, attitude, etc. Everything I was quizzed on by a few nurses I knew the answer to. I fumbled around with the BP cuffs a few times just getting acclimated with the type that took all of the vitals except for RR. Otherwise, I felt I did fairly well for such a greenie. The charge nurse gave me fours. Since it wasn't the highest, I went to the recommendation part and found nothing written except for a signature. One of the nurses I worked more closely with looked over my shoulder and mumbled that she thought I deserved higher. I guess I should just let it roll off my back and look ahead. I found I don't like the machines which take all of the vitals for you. They might save time usually, but when one goes on the fritz, it's a pain. I needed to get a temp on a lady with severe abdominal pain. She wanted to breath through her mouth to help herself deal with the pain. I had to stop her twice with that because of one of these machines deciding to go crazy. :roll: Give me reliability over fuddy-duddies Overall, I learned a lot. Maybe not as much about medicine as I'd like, but about attitudes. And that I need to step it up a notch on my self teaching spanish program