Medic Interning in Sacramento ???

[Sodapop]

9 months after finishing my hospital rotations and 11 months after finishing classroom portion I have finally secured an internship with Sacramento City Fire. I was wondering if anyone here has interned with them and what your experience was like.

I am spending time reviewing the Sac Protocols, reviewing drug book and Cardiac. Also spending a little lab time to brush up. I am interested in how the "station life" was with Sac City. I worked VFD years ago and work 24/48 with a county EMS 911 system so I am not a total noob. Granted those were as EMT but I was EMT on ALS rig so I have 911 call experience from a scene management standpoint. I have already decided I will not talk about my past experience unless I am directly asked. I am NOT going to be the guy that is always "we use to do it like this...." as I know times are different and I am in a different system and I am in a Medic role now not EMT.

Thanks in advance.

~Sodapop~

 

[DrankTheKoolaid]

As in Sac City who just had all their narcotics removed and have the protocols of AEMT's recently?

 

[Akulahawk]

As in Sac City who just had all their narcotics removed and have the protocols of AEMT's recently?

Sac City Fire follows Sacramento County EMS protocol, which does NOT have AEMT protocols. SFD does not have their own protocols. If you're referring to the "missing" narcotics back in 2006, well that was 6 years ago and I seem to recall narcotics going back on the units with further controls. If you know of any AEMT protocols for Sacramento County or current info about them not having any narcotics on any of their units, please show me.

To the OP, which station will you be at? Some stations are busier than others. Back when I interned with them, Station 6 was the busiest in the area, followed (IIRC) Station 56. Where I was, I typically ran between 12 and 14 calls per shift. Each run averaged 42 minutes from the time we left the station to the time we were back there. Was it busy? Yes. Was it hair-on-fire busy? Not where I was.

My advice is: ASK the other firefighters to do things for you. Do NOT tell them what you want them to do. You can verbalize a plan and bounce it off of them, but... just always be polite. You are a guest in their house. Your preceptor may be cookbook-ish or may be an excellent clinician. I did my ride time with one of each.

 

[DrankTheKoolaid]

re

I was being sarcastic, didn't seem to work obviously. One of my Paramedic students is from Sac City, I'm quite familiar.

Take Ak's advice if you want it to go smoothly. Or go somewhere else that is non fire-based unless that is your end goal anyways.

 

[Akulahawk]

I was being sarcastic, didn't seem to work obviously. One of my Paramedic students is from Sac City, I'm quite familiar.

Take Ak's advice if you want it to go smoothly. Or go somewhere else that is non fire-based unless that is your end goal anyways.

Sarcasm is difficult to interpret via written word. It happens.

My preceptor asked me right off the bat if I wanted to be trained as a Fire Medic or as a non-Fire Medic. I chose the latter, knowing that while I have learned to stand on my own, I can also integrate myself with the Fire Medics quite easily. Believe me, I learned a LOT during my ride time. I learned even MORE on my own later. Given that SFD is a primarily urban/suburban, your transport times will be short. You will NOT be able to get all the way down the protocol (for whatever one you're using) before you get to the ED. A lot of Sacramento's protocols evolved out of the mindset of the EMT-II, and since most transports are short duration... the EMT-II (now AEMT) stuff would do just fine here. Out in the more rural areas, you're far more likely to need to know (and likely to do) everything in the book, and possibly have to call in for orders to go beyond a certain point in the protocol, and possibly even require orders beyond even that.

The only time I ever came close to reaching the end of a protocol was during a code. Our transports were that short. Even if we had to run to Folsom, we didn't get close to the bottom of any protocol...