How long to feel comfortable

blachatch

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This is to Medics and even EMT's, how long did it take you to feel comfortable running calls and making decisions? I'm only 6 shifts in with being a medic and do not feel comfortable yet on calls. I even have a hard time spitting out my report to the hospital staff. I'm confident in my skills and education .. Just trying to get how everyone else felt there first few months on.
 

DesertMedic66

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It's going to depend on yourself personally and how busy you are. If you average 14 calls a day you will probably become comfortable very quickly
 
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blachatch

Forum Lieutenant
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Yeah I do mostly IFT and we have 911 contracts with nursing facilities .. So the call volume is not there really.
 

Akulahawk

EMT-P/ED RN
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I figure it took me about 3-6 months of a fairly high call volume before I started feeling comfortable with all aspects of EMT work, particularly giving report about my patient. It took me about a year to feel comfortable calling myself a Paramedic, but because of my experience as an EMT (in particular the calls we ran), the transition to doing Paramedic work was actually quite easy.
 

nicolewade93

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I am 5 months in, and have been working as a vollie EMTB with the call volume of maybe 1-3 calls a 12 hour shift. I am just now starting to feel comfortable running calls. I still am learning my "method" and "structure" on how to do things... it's been rough because I'm generally a very quiet, soft spoken person so it makes it a lot harder! I just landed a full-time EMTB gig for a 911+transfer commercial service. I'm hoping with the 9-10 calls a day, even if they are all transfers, that I will become much more comfortable. Best of luck to you, you'll get comfortable eventually :)
 

EMT11KDL

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It all depends on YOU, the more patient contacts you get the better you will feel about doing patient assessments and being confident in yourself. I was lucky when I got into EMS I was with a busy system so once I got through my Basic FTO program which was 6 weeks, (WOW that was a long time ago), I felt confident towards the end of that. When I went and got my Medic, I had worked over 6 years as a basic so that transition to medic, so talking to patients and ER Staff was already there, and it took a few months to be completely confident that I was ready to run calls on my own at the Medic level.

It just takes time, ask questions to your Medic partner after the call and take the advice he/she gives you, and do not forget to continue to learn, most of your patients will teach you something new. With you doing a lot of IFT, you should have the patients chart, so you can read and see what medical conditions the patient has been Dxd with, and than look at the patient and see how the patient presents with those conditions.
 

Tigger

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Even if you are doing only transfers you can still get more comfortable with reports. Give a report to every facility that will take one, and if you feel inclined, come up with a report that you'd give an ED if that's where you were suddenly transporting to. When you're newer, thinking about what you are going to say first is the important part after all.
 

Carlos Danger

Forum Deputy Chief
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The key is to have a routine. As much as possible, do things, ask things, and report things the same way, in the same order, every contact.
 
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