Confidence in EMS

[jaksasquatch]

Hey all,

I have a question regarding confidence level during patient care. You see during my EMT clinicals I really didn't get that many great calls. Most of my calls were just your normal things (chest pain, elderly patients, falls etc...) along with some IFT. During my first few clinicals I was putting bp cuffs on the wrong way almost throwing away obvious sharps into the regular trash, I was just totally out of it. My question is that normal? I'm usually a very serious person, I had the "romantic" version of EMS thinking I had to "bring it" to simple calls. One medic even exclaimed in the ER "chill out dude don't be nervous" as I was obviously blushing because of a simple mistake.

I do have a little social anxiety that gets better with time. I was blushing, sweaty hands, hands lightly shaking, I was very nervous getting up close and personal to patients during EKG's (felt like I was feeling them up lol). This seemed to go away by the end of EMT school but I'm worried that it will prevent me from performing well once I get my first job. Any comments/suggestions would be appreciated, I want this career so bad I just need to overcome this I guess.

 

[STXmedic]

That's fairly normal. Just make sure to take the advice they gave you on relaxing. The more you do it, the less exciting runs will become. Your excitement during the simple calls will very quickly dissipate. The excitement during a critical patient may take a bit longer, so you're just going to have to force yourself to relax on those.

One of the best tips I was given for excitement: Whenever you catch yourself getting excited, stop, take a breath, and check your pulse. The idiom is that your pulse should never be higher than the patient's. However, I've found that, clichés aside, the act of doing it really does get me to relax.

 

[Achilles]

Hey all,

I have a question regarding confidence level during patient care. You see during my EMT clinicals I really didn't get that many great calls. Most of my calls were just your normal things (chest pain, elderly patients, falls etc...) along with some IFT. During my first few clinicals I was putting bp cuffs on the wrong way almost throwing away obvious sharps into the regular trash, I was just totally out of it. My question is that normal? I'm usually a very serious person, I had the "romantic" version of EMS thinking I had to "bring it" to simple calls. One medic even exclaimed in the ER "chill out dude don't be nervous" as I was obviously blushing because of a simple mistake.

I do have a little social anxiety that gets better with time. I was blushing, sweaty hands, hands lightly shaking, I was very nervous getting up close and personal to patients during EKG's (felt like I was feeling them up lol). This seemed to go away by the end of EMT school but I'm worried that it will prevent me from performing well once I get my first job. Any comments/suggestions would be appreciated, I want this career so bad I just need to overcome this I guess.

He's right,
Chill out don't be nervous.
We all slip up sometimes.
Heck when I did my first pt interactions, my hands would always shake because I was nervous.
You'll be fine!

 

[xrsm002]

I still shake in some calls and I can even feel my heart pounding. It's something that happens.

 

[jaksasquatch]

Wow, I guess I'm human. Not a h34r: Disappointment fills life :sigh, lol thanks guys

 

[CALEMT]

Hey all,

I have a question regarding confidence level during patient care. You see during my EMT clinicals I really didn't get that many great calls. Most of my calls were just your normal things (chest pain, elderly patients, falls etc...) along with some IFT. During my first few clinicals I was putting bp cuffs on the wrong way almost throwing away obvious sharps into the regular trash, I was just totally out of it. My question is that normal? I'm usually a very serious person, I had the "romantic" version of EMS thinking I had to "bring it" to simple calls. One medic even exclaimed in the ER "chill out dude don't be nervous" as I was obviously blushing because of a simple mistake.

I do have a little social anxiety that gets better with time. I was blushing, sweaty hands, hands lightly shaking, I was very nervous getting up close and personal to patients during EKG's (felt like I was feeling them up lol). This seemed to go away by the end of EMT school but I'm worried that it will prevent me from performing well once I get my first job. Any comments/suggestions would be appreciated, I want this career so bad I just need to overcome this I guess.

You will get over it. Thats what clinical's are for is to learn how to interact with the patients and to practice your skills that you learned in class. How I got over the jitters was to take a couple deep breaths and focus on the task at hand. My preceptors taught me that slow is fast and fast is slow, even to this day I'll still get a adrenaline rush and jitters but I find they go away when I actually start doing whatever it is that I'm doing.

 

[firetender]

truth you can rely on

Confidence comes from making mistakes.

The trick is to not make the same mistake twice.

(That does happen, but not too often.)

So you're doomed to making mistakes, that's a given. You've put yourself in a position to make life and death mistakes; you've entered a high risk enterprise both for your patients and yourselves. Unlike most job descriptions, the consequences of your actions can have immediate or delayed repercussions on you and the people in your life, professional and personal.

All that matters is how you recover from your mistakes; how quickly, how lasting and how well you can apply the lessons you learned to the future.







.

To

 

[IslandTime]

I'm really new to this and boy are mistake easy to make, at all level. My first two 12 leads I had the left and right leg reversed, the first one I caught, the second one the medic caught. Embarrassed? You bet! I think that it's everything being new that does it. The simple things aren't yet second nature so you're thinking about everything and get overloaded.

 

[Christopher]

I'm really new to this and boy are mistake easy to make, at all level. My first two 12 leads I had the left and right leg reversed, the first one I caught, the second one the medic caught. Embarrassed? You bet! I think that it's everything being new that does it. The simple things aren't yet second nature so you're thinking about everything and get overloaded.

I teach ECG's to everybody from EMT's to med students. I switch leads around too.

The trick when you make a mistake, is to realize it

That is much harder to do than not making the mistake in the first place.