ER Bound...

[Michael]

[web:0ab46ba8d1]http://www.taatohdivers.com/images/k_center/DiverOK_md.jpg[/web:0ab46ba8d1]

[medic429]

Good luck becksdad!!

[Ridryder 911]

Congrat's and dittos to Dust's advice. Now, as in ER you will also see the "other" side of EMS and what some of the dilemma is as well.

Now, you can really explore medicine and as Dust's describes all of it can be a learning experience.. good & bad.. but, you will find we are only the tip of the iceberg in medicine...

Good luck !

R/r 911

[IreneRN_ED]

Well, it's official: I begin the new adventure on Monday as a Tech in the ER. I'm hoping to learn a lot, go back to school and have it paid for, etc. It will be interesting to learn the difference in the ER as opposed to the street. But, God I miss the street!! You know, its a lot of fun, really! But, hey, I expect I'll have fun inside the hospital, too. Anyway, wish me luck!!

Where I work, there a few EMT's who work either as Techs or nurses & it's always good to see the other side of care, on both sides. And the more you know the better you understand each other's point of view.

[IreneRN_ED]

Good deal! I trust you to make the very most of this opportunity. There is so much to be gained and learned in this environment. The possibilities are limited only by your determination. I've seen too many medics go to ER work for years and years, yet never break out of the "Me EMT. Me no need know all that." mindset. Just like they were in the field, they are worthless slugs who don't care about anything unless it involves "skills." But, I digress.

Not only will you be exposed to a tremendous and continuous learning atmosphere, but you will have constant access to physicians, nurses, RTs and MTs, who are great sources of information to learn from. And you will notice that in the hospital, everybody is always in learning mode. The above professions recognise themselves as lifelong students, unlike most EMTs who come out of school convinced they know everything they will ever need to know. But again, I digress.

Good luck, Bro! :thumbright:

As an ED RN, I like all the RN's I have worked with over the years, feel like we learn something new everyday & that's the way we like it. Keep on open mind & you won't believe what will fly into it. No one knows everything & everyone has their strengths & weaknesses & working in this business is NOT the place to know it all or pretend to. People lives depend on you & if you don't know, ask! Someone will always help you. :3some:

[sledogg1]

Took a job over to htt://www.rn.com and saw rn's intake to medics in the er............interesting. There are still the dinosaurs out there that still ask if we have o2 on board, i say we open the windows and drive very fast. But the day I did a needle cric in the er in front of her was priceless I thought she wet herself.

We posted our policies from ett-crics-chest tubes-cardioversion-meds ect and she doesn't get it. We fill in for hospitals that don't have doctors on,but I agree the ER is their territory the field ours,but work as a team and good luck.

[sledogg1]

htt://www.nurses.com

[becksdad]

I want to thank everyone for their advice posted here, and in another thread that was active before I actually started work in the ER. It has all been helpful.

It's been about 3 months now, and I can say that so far it has been a very good experience! I am coming to love what I do there as much as what I did on the street. It is certainly busier than on the truck in the sense of dealing with 20 patients at a time instead of one at a time. Anyway, folks have offered their thoughts on hospital work (both positive and negative), and I would like to offer some of my own observations, and maybe others can comment further.

First, what some have presented as the down side. Cleaning beds, changing linens, placing Foleys, running labs, transporting patients, rectal temps, cleaning patients covered in feces or blood or vomit or dirt, swabbing noses and butts, or whatever else you might think of. Yep, Techs do it. But guess what? So do nurses. At least in the hospital where I work they do. It's too busy not to work as a team, and so far it is the extremely rare nurse who feels that any job is beneath them. If the charge nurse can empty trash, change linens and clean patients, so can I.

Another thought on the "negative" stuff. I have found that the quickest way to be accepted as a valuable member of the team is when some patient comes in from an ALF covered in urine and feces, be the first one there to start cleaning them up, and assessing them as you're cleaning. I find if you do that consistently, there will be no lack of help to do it with you. They almost rush to help you out! Of course, that is just one example. I guess what I'm getting at is being ready to jump right in and do the stuff nobody likes to do, but everybody ends up having to do at some point.

But for anybody new, be assured that this is not all that Techs do. We are involved in patient care and assessment also. All the stuff that's done on the trucks is done in the hospital. Vital signs, cardiac monitoring, histories, ongoing reassessments, blood draws, O2 administration, etc. Any Tech will have to prove themselves as competent in patient assessment and basic skills before Doc's and Nurses will really trust you, and this is where experience on the truck helped me so much. I decided quite awhile ago that since I am an EMT-B, and have very limited ability to initiate therapies in the field, I should concentrate on assessment skills and become as good and accurate as I can at this. After awhile of dealing with the same Docs and Nurses, if you're pretty good at assessments and communicating with other clinicians, they begin to trust your judgement.

And the learning that's available! My God - it's everywhere! All the time! I get to ask questions of Physicians, Nurses, Respiratory Therapists, Radiologists, you name it. We have discussions about differential diagnoses, pharmacological mechanisms of drugs, contraindications, the list is endless! Sometimes I feel like a pest to the Docs, but I think they like it. They have always been willing to discuss in depth anything I ask about. You just have to pick the right time to try to discuss stuff. I've had the opportunity to sit and talk to a Radiologist during a head CT about the anatomy and physiology of the brain and observe abnormal pathology and how it presents radiologically. Docs have included me while discussing X-Ray interpretation. What more could anyone who considers themselves a student of medicine ask for?

So now I have some funds together to start back to school, and then after a year of employment, the hospital will pay for the rest of my school tuition. Again, what more could anyone ask for? I figure to get the prerequisite stuff done, which seems to be similar for any medical discipline, and see which particular direction I want to go in. Already have some of the pre-req stuff that's needed for any degree, but need to brush up on math for sure. Then I think A&P would come next, and by then I will qualify for tuition coverage. From what I've seen so far in 3 short months, I think I agree with Dustdevil that RT's are the closest thing to what is most attractive about Emergency Medicine. Every patient they respond to actually needs medical attention, and they seem to be very educated and must meet very strict standards. But we'll see where it all leads.

Anyway, I didn't really mean to take up so much space here. But I did want to offer some perspectives from an EMSer in a hospital atmosphere. Maybe someone can benefit from it, and hopefully others will post some other stuff that will be helpful to us all....

[Ridryder 911]

Welcome to medicine... I always thought it was interesting for many EMT's and Medics to assume they actually know medicine, having never worked in a hospital environment. The EMT curriculum was developed in assumption that most students have either worked previously as an EMT or have hospital experience.

I get amused for those that assume that they have taken an 8 week class and then become an expert in emergency medicine, as well never really being exposed to a multitude of treatment regime and philosophies.

Good luck in your new career and learning aspects...

R/r 911

[IreneRN_ED]

It sounds like you are loving life in the ED! You are a real team player & since I've been working in the ED going on 5 yrs now, those who jump in & help are those who receive the most back. There are no prima donnas in my ED, unlike some of the floor nurses I have worked with in the past. We are all there to care for patients, no matter what they are there for & how they present, dirty, obnoxious, drunk, dead, stable, etc. Glad to hear that you're learning a lot. I'd work with you anytime. :P/