First shift at my new station

[PCP]

Well my first shift at my new station did not go very well to say the least. It all started when I was at home with my 22 month old twins and my wife having a nice dinner when the phone rang at 18:15 and it was scheduling from Vancouver. They said I was suppose to be working that night at the downtown station on 20 fox and the shift started at 18:00. I was sure I was not suppose to be working that night as I had my schedule posted on my fridge but it turned out they had sent out a new schedule and called my house but the babysitter did not pass the message along.

Any ways I live ten minutes at the most from the station so I was there fairly quickly but course my car had broken down on my way home from the mine site a day earlier so I left in Campbell River along with my stethescope, scissors and pen light thinking I was not scheduled to work my first shift until the 15th of this month.

So at this point I was a little frustrated and nervous all at the same time due to being late for my first shift and starting a new station. My first page out came in at 19:15 for a abd. laceration and ALS and fire would be responding as well. I have never done a layered call before with ALS so course that gets me even more nervous since I don't know what they are going to expect from me when they arrive. Anyways, on arrival an RCMP member pulls up at the same time along with ALS right behind us and fire. When I walk in the house and find the patient young femal laying on the bathroom floor with a 3 inch laceration across her abdomen with minimal bleeding.

So I start my Primary assessment A,B,C, and D sure enough she said she had a syncope episode and hit her head. I was getting the hx while I was applying a abd pad to the wound to stop the bleeding. I feel do to being so nervous and working with a new partner and ALS I did not take C-Spine as quick as I should have so one of the fire guy's stepped in and asked if I wanted him to take C-Spine and I " Yes please ". To make a long story short I guess a certain fire guy or two where standing around making comments while I was doing my call and making eye contact suggesting that I was not doing a good job and a few other unnecessary comments.

I was not aware of this since I was focused on my patient but my partner over heared their comments and stepped in and spoke to their captain and told him that I was new and to ask his guy's to shut the f#@k up!

So we finished call and made our way to the hospital and handed the patient over to the ER staff. After words I maid the comment to my partner " So I guess you can tell I am new eh?" His reponse was " No Shit " That was when he told me about the comments that he over heard and told me not to worry about it, which I didn't as I don't care what some firefighter has to say or any other person for that matter as I am fairly new and have not had much exposure to the world of EMS.

The rest of the night went okay. I have had better shifts and I know once I get use to working in a busier station with different paramedics and ALS I will calm down. It's just hard to sit there at a station as the new guy and have people not talk to you and course you don't want to say something that might give the other paramedics a bad impression of you.

It is hard to explain as most of you have never been to Vancouver Island and no where I am talking about and the size of the town I am now working in but compared to the other towns I have worked in this is much larger with approx. 80-90 thousand people with two ambulance stations within the town. I have been told that some of the paramedics are going to give me a hard time since I am new but most of them are good and will help me learn which is what I am hoping to do.

Eyes and Ears Open and mouth shut along with being respectful and having the passion to learn will help me to be accepted into the station.

Next shift is on the 15th of this month so I am hoping things go better than my first shift did. Oh and alway remember to make sure the jump kit is closed before you pick it up cause if you don't everything falls out when you pick it up! OOPS LOL great way to end the shift.

As one paramedic said to me that night when he found out I was new to the station " Welcome to Hell " Should have guessed that was how my night was going to go!

[Happiness]

Well I have to agree welcome to hell if your in Naniamo I am lucky as our station dosnt have the back stabbing that many BCAS stations do. It is suppose to be team work, if they are not talking to you go up and say My name is ______ its nice to meet you and put your hand out to shake. If they choose to not shake your hand its their issue not yours. I wouldnt last long in any of those stations because I dont tolerate back stabbing crap. When I did the precepting in PR they were having those types of issues, I came in and said to my partner and preceptor, If you have a problem with what I am doing or not doing then please make sure that I know what your thinking because that is how I am going to learn and that is why I am here. One of my partners saw me write down a BP of 190/130 and thought he had caught me in something, went to the hospital and they got the same. At the end of the call he said the above that he thought I did it wrong and it was great to know that. This guy is now a CCP and I still get to see him once in awhile which is nice. My preceptor was not very well liked in that station but she was awsome for me and most of all she informed me of what I did wrong and what I did right.

PCP there is always the "getting to know period" but dont let them walk all over you as it will just carry on. Enjoy your new posting and I hope you find great partners.

[cprted]

As one paramedic said to me that night when he found out I was new to the station "Welcome to Hell"

Do you know what the RCMP call Naniamo?

Surrey-by-the-Sea

[PCP]

Well I have to agree welcome to hell if your in Naniamo I am lucky as our station dosnt have the back stabbing that many BCAS stations do. It is suppose to be team work, if they are not talking to you go up and say My name is ______ its nice to meet you and put your hand out to shake. If they choose to not shake your hand its their issue not yours. I wouldnt last long in any of those stations because I dont tolerate back stabbing crap. When I did the precepting in PR they were having those types of issues, I came in and said to my partner and preceptor, If you have a problem with what I am doing or not doing then please make sure that I know what your thinking because that is how I am going to learn and that is why I am here. One of my partners saw me write down a BP of 190/130 and thought he had caught me in something, went to the hospital and they got the same. At the end of the call he said the above that he thought I did it wrong and it was great to know that. This guy is now a CCP and I still get to see him once in awhile which is nice. My preceptor was not very well liked in that station but she was awsome for me and most of all she informed me of what I did wrong and what I did right.

PCP there is always the "getting to know period" but dont let them walk all over you as it will just carry on. Enjoy your new posting and I hope you find great partners.

Thank you for your support Happiness. I do hope I work with great partners and I'm sure I will and I am sure I will work with not so great partners. Its their loss if they choose not to get to know me. I stay out of the political stuff and show up and have fun and do my job and thats the plan. I also plan on letting my partners know that I am fairly new and if they see something I am missing or have done wrong please tell me as I would rather hear from them then my Unit chief. I also feel that is a great way to learn is by vertran paramedics who are willing to take the time to teach us junior paramedics.

Cprted I have heard that saying before and not sure why they call it that, as I feel Surrey is alot worse than Nanaimo as I have lived in Nanaimo most of my life and we don't get many shootings if 1 a year. I will soon find out what I am made of and see how think my skin is!

[DwayneEMTP]

Yeah man, welcome to EMS in general.

A couple of things...you may not have taken Cspine as soon as you should have, but what I see much more often than that is people taking Cspine before they bother to assess their patients.

Also, having someone mention something that you forgot is not a failure necessarily on your part but is certainly a success on theirs. The firemen that were talking but didn't have the sacks to step up and do the right thing...they're the pussies in this scenario, not you.

I once had my basic partner during a code yell, "Could everyone shut up for a second! Womack! Do you want me to push bicarb on this patient! I need an answer please!"

Did I fail? Sort of, but we were running the code with all volunteers out in the middle of nowhere and I was trying to keep them off of each other and allow them to rotate in for compressions and bagging and such...but it wasn't about my failure in this instance, in my opinion, nearly so much about his success. He covered my ass when I mistakenly got distracted for a minute...Good on him.

If you spend even one second worrying about what people are saying about you on scene then you are wasting valuable mental resources. If you spend one second listening to others talk about what someone may have said about you on scene, you're even a bigger dork.

Those people that have something to criticize after the call, face to face? I'd listen to them..at least they've got the balls to try and help you to improve.

New places are always hard man...and it sounds like this one may be worse than some. But you can do this..stay away from the negative energy, spread good energy when you can and let the rest work it'self out...

Dwayne

[PCP]

Hey Dwayne hope all is good in your world!

It might be tough at the beginning being the new guy but at least there are 5 of us new guy's starting at the station. I am excited to be working in my home town being able to help the people that live in my community. I am not going to judge anybody or the station just by doing 1 shift at the station as I know there are alot of good paramedics tht work out of the two stations in town. I am going to take this opportunity that I have to learn as much as I can from the ALS and vetran crews before I head off and start working full time in Vancouver in another year or two.

I will stay away from the negative energy and only give off good energy as I am not one to complain when things go bad or someone kicks me in the balls. I learn from everything that I do and try to always turn a negative into a positive.

I heard the comment " We eat our own " I believe we do that as paramedics but I like to think that those paramedics that give other paramedics a hard time are just burned out and trying to make themselves feel or look better. I know I am better than that and will not play into their little game!

Brian

[tniuqs]

I like your attitude PCP .. don't let the "girl's" talk get to you.

Seriously WHY in this profession do we throw an noob into the fray, without "modelling" first a good FTO or Preceptor WILL lead by example, that is what mentoring is all about.

[PCP]

Well I did my second shift on my last days off from the mine site and it was a good shift. Had lots of calls along with a great partner. Ended up getting four seprates! We have different shift patterns and I was working a " fox " shift which means I get paid a different wage while being at the station on call waiting for a call to come in. Once I get paged I am on the clock and I get paid my full pay for a minimum of three hours. I can do one call in those three hours or three calls but still get paid my full wage for those three hours. Once those three hours are up I go back to my other wage until I get paged out again.

In that shift I got paid for 12 hours at my full wage and 4 hours at my on call wage. We did not do anything exciting for calls just mostly routine calls with one code 3 for an MVA which turned out to be nothing and we were cancelled by the police. Our thinking was the car had gone in the ditch during the night and someone in the morning drove by the car in the ditch and called 911.

I just wanted to say " Thank You " to all of you who for your positive comments and to let you all know that I had a great second shift and I am looking forward to working at my new station.

Stay safe everybody!

Brian

[tniuqs]

BCAS and CUPE ... they intricacies in the way they pay you,well makes my head explode OMG give me a day rate or hourly rate and its all good yikes. Sure hope your getting more than 2 bucks an hour to pack a pager and not visit the pub for a cold one.

Good Luck, in your new station and if I ever get out that way .. well first round is on me btw have you got a place for a tent ?

I pay my camping fees in fish and dungeoness btw LOL.

[PCP]

We only have one car that is 2 bucks an hour while on pager and that is our transfer car which runs from 05:30 to 17:30 but of course you could always work longer depending on how transfers need to be done that day or after a transfer is done we can be used for any calls that may come into dispatch. The rest of the cars we have are full time cars or the Fox shift at just under 12 bucks an hour while at the station.

If you want to put your tent up in front of the condo building where I live and can get away with it sure. Maybe by the time you make it to the Island my condo will have sold and I have a house. Just put the condo up for sale a month ago due to my wife and I expecting child number 3 in December.

I am always up for fish and dungeoness if that is what you have to offer.