A_Messick1

I don't necessarily think the need for immediate cardioversion was really needed in that episode. At the top of memory I believe the pt was completely alert and conscious. Yet I don't know what kind of rhythm he was in or what the immediate risk was.

An update! Hey ya'll I didn't mean to leave everyone hanging on here but I appreciate the advice! I've just been pretty busy. I'm loving every second of (except the seconds sitting around the station not doing anything that feels like years going by lol). But I only have three more weeks left before my final and psycho-motor skill stations! Plus I am maintaining an 87% average which puts me in the top 5 within our class I haven't gotten much more comments on my age except every now and then. I've practically met all the other EMT's in my area from talking with them at the hospital. Some are nice and some not so much, but I suppose you get that anywhere you go! My patient contact performance has gotten a lot better since I last posted, in fact so good the driver and FTO lets me run the show myself. I even have my own radio to talk with the coms center, do the radio reports and then they let me give the oral report to the nurses at the hospital I plan on being more active here now on. I had a quick question! I don't know how many people on here have seen the TV show "night watch" that follows the police officers, firefighters, and paramedics throughout the night in New Orleans or not. But on the season finale the one paramedic had an older man that had cancer and I believe was in septic shock? Anywho the patients heart rate was extremely high and abnormal. The medic tried pushing a few rounds of meds but did not work. So he called into med control and the physician advised to shock the patient at 50 joules, there was no change so med control advised one more round at 100 joules. Neither treatments worked so med control just told the medic to bring the patient in. The patient obviously looked in distress and pain from the shock delivery, and I know defibulating is commonly used to put the heart into a better rhythm but do medics ever try pushing pain meds before delivering the treatment? Or is the electrical shock so strong it doesn't matter if you push pain meds or not? Thanks!

Thank you much for the advice. I will for sure try out a gym. The stretchers are a tad heavier than I thought, especially even with the ones that go up on their own!

Hey y'all! I'm Arabella from Maryland. I am currently enrolled in an EMT-B program with a vollie fire department in Eastern Shore MD. My class and I are at chapt. 28 in the pre-hospital emergency care 10th edition (not sure what everyone else learns from). We've basically finally moved from our A&P, legal/ethical, and medical assessment studies. We are now entering trauma assessment and care. We are also finally halfway through. I did have some questions about starting out, if that hopefully doesn't over extend my greeting? Q: If you could give any advice to an EMT student, what would it be? With riding in the ambulance doing my patient contacts (required a certain number of contacts to pass) I hear a lot of different things from different crews from things that make me second think like "this profession is the kind that chews up and spits out the new and isn't the best thing for someone new" to great advice like things from keeping yourself from burning or techniques to make things easier than what the textbook says. Q: How many young EMT's do you really know? I recently turned 18, I have retarded growth, and pretty soft spoken. In other words I look about 16 in person :-/ ... during my medical contacts I have a good amount of patients that ask for my age and obviously are all surprised in my answer and don't really believe I am an EMT student. Which this sort of puts me down because it makes me a little more nervous (which I am pretty nervous to start out with) because I feel as if the patient doesn't trust and/or have faith in me. Once I graduate and I am the only one in the back of the ambulance without my FTO there I don't know how patients will react. Q: Going back to the nervousness, do you still get nervous? If not, did it just fade? Or did you find a way around it? I feel as being nervous sort of effects my performance and I can't effectively work as great as I picture in my mind. This is a question I haven't shared with my FTO or classroom instructors yet. I feel as if it might make me out to look weak and incompetent to preform the duties of an EMT. Anyways thanks for your time