Nerves are completely natural. You had experiences, you critically evaluated your performance with intentions to improve, which is more than a lot of new EMTs and medics do. Honestly, I'm significantly more worried about the new providers that DON'T experience any nervousness.
Vent, I understand what you are saying about expanded scope of practice and the different environments an RT may work in and under. Just out of curiosity(and this is not to sound demeaning), how much is taught outside of the standard AAS curriculum? It seems that there is a lot of in-depth...
He's not being insulting, he's regurgitating what you just told him. You say between 30 and 60 patients in a 12 hour period. Assuming you have no breaks or downtime between patients, at 30 patients that is 24 minutes per patient. At 60 patients that is 12 minutes per patient. On average. So...
It looks good on paper to have a cardiac arrest en route to the hospital in 5 minutes BLS, it is still relying on things going smoothly. The least of which is assuming that the patient is on the ground floor and bystanders are not in the way. I'm not debating that there are a number of...
You misunderstood me.
Call Received: A
En Route: B
On Scene: C
Transporting: D
At Hospital: E
The time from B to C is your response time
The time from C to D is your on scene time
The point I was making is that it is pretty rare that your on scene time will be less than 6 minutes.
How often do you have crews with an on-scene time to hospital time of less than 6 minutes? Next time you think you are cutting down your on-scene time, take a look at what dispatch records and re-evaluate.
Vent, I think you are taking the thoughts out of the context that they are presented. It is nice to think that every health care provider has only the patient's best interests in mind, but I think we all know of providers that will do their best "to get rid of a patient," whether in EMS, SNF...
But the 86-Hour Firefighter Course is such an honor that they "deserve" a license plate?
Personally, I think they are all kind of dumb in general, but if you want one have at it. I just don't see how becoming a firefighter is a much greater accomplishment than becoming an EMT.
I know some agencies that have it set up through county to alert them via text messages, however the biggest downside I see is no easy way to turn it off. The smaller volunteer agencies around here do about 1000 calls a year, and I'm sorry, if I wasn't planning on responding to a call I really...
The program I went through broke down the requirements by a number of different categories. You needed to have a certain number of patient contacts in each area. To get credit for each type of emergency you had to either see the patient in the hospital or on the ambulance, having performed an...
Alright, I'll simplify it. You're telling a girl a story, and you can tell she doesn't care. Do you finish the story in full, or do you cut out chunks of it to have it done with? When she asks you a question, are you going to answer with a yes/no answer, or something descriptive?
(That's...
Ah, and I'm sure you've been doing this for like 20 years. And I'm not saying you don't interview the patient and read the paperwork, but it's important to care when you're asking questions, pay attention to reactions, etc.
But you're convinced that you have the right attitude, and I don't...
Just out of curiosity, how much patient contact time have you had that you feel so emotionally cold and disconnected from the patient? And knowing how to take a detailed history isn't just a series of questions, it's not a formula.
First off, a genuine feeling of emotion is going to be a lot more helpful for a patient than holding someone's hand just because you have to do. And secondly, caring about your patients is going to translate caring in other aspects. That careless attitude is going to lead you to make...
I actually carry a fair amount with me. I keep a spare change of work clothes in a bag, so that it's easily accessible to bring to work with me (socks, underwear, and undershirt included). Plus a change of regular clothes, and a couple of sweatshirts that just keep magically appearing. A...
I second the opinion to wait... for my primary EMS job I have:
a nice pair of boots
comfortable undergarments
a stethoscope(they don't supply one)
a watch with second hand
pens and paper
I wouldn't worry about fancy pants or anything until after you try out whatever you've been...
an Epi-Pen is a different concentration of the drug, and is also going sub-cutaneously instead of directly into the vascular system. The drug isn't going to circulate at all.
The age is important because of the other things going on in life that are foundations of the rest of their lives. A 16 or 17 year old, still in High School should have a lot of things on their mind: doing well in school, applying to college or deciding on a future, enjoying themselves, etc...
A favorite of mine is to take your max number of pullups and divide the number in half. Do that number of pull ups 3 times a day when you get a chance. Right before meals is a great time. Every week try and increase that number by one. It takes time, but if you can keep up the schedule, it's...