Life of a Trainee Paramedic

I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, I hope you all enjoy the next few week’s if your off.  I know some of you may not, and I probably won’t be this time next year if all goes well, but it’s still a nice time of year, when most people are in a good mood, even my parent’s!

Enjoy the holidays.

TP

As part of my course, we have academic work to do along with our placement work.  With these Case Studies, Essays and Reflections and anything that we read, and want to include in our work, we have to reference.  The University only like us to include work that has been ‘peer-reviewed’ which in plain English means people who are qualified, and have written journals or books on the particular subject that I want to talk about.  This has the advantage that when we reference something, we know that it has come from a reputable source, and is usually evidence based.  However, we always have to remember that there could be a few different points of view, so we have to try and get several sources to back up our point.  There is one source of information that we are absolutely not allowed to include, and that is Wikipedia!  I have recently read an article on the BBC News website, and it seems it’s creator wants students to be able to reference from it. 

The reason why the University does not want us to use it is because anyone can contribute to it, and so there is always the worry that what they contribute, is not actual fact.  As I’m sure that you can understand, this is not something that you want to happen when your trying to learn about a subject.  For this reason, the University subscribes to several sites that contain Journals on a whole range of subjects that we can download and use for free.  This mean’s that there is a lot of information that we could use in our work, and keep up to date with the latest clinical developments.

The reason that I mention Wikipedia, is that even though I might not be able to use it to reference in my academic work, I use it quite a lot just to look up what thing’s mean, or what they involve, as it is more or less going to be correct.  I watched a film today that had a reference to the American Civil War, and not having a clue about why it happened, I looked it up, and spent about an hour reading about it.  Totally off topic, and not what I should have been doing, but it was interesting none the less!

TP

I’ve just finished a run of four night shifts including a few different situation’s that I’ve not found myself in before.  It was also the 1st shifts that I have done with my new mentor.  I’ve worked with him before without my old mentor, but these were our 1st shifts like this, and I had some question’s to ask.  With Uni, we have a few essay’s that need to be in at the beginning of January, so I thought it was only logical to go through my thoughts on them and see what he thinks or anything else that I could possibly include.  Also any clinical question’s that I have, I can pose, and then cause a conundrum, which has involved a few times this weekend asking the Doctor’s in A&E their opinion, when their not dealing with patient’s that it.  The hospital has been extremely busy this past weekend, I can’t remember ever seeing it that busy, and the hospital was on the verge of closing it’s door’s to patient’s.  There were time breaches going on all over the place, but it wasn’t just A&E that was busy, there were no bed’s in any of the ward’s where patent’s would be sent to for further assessment.

The Friday and Saturday evening were like most shifts, but Sunday was different as my mentor’s colleague went ill, giving me a chance to actually work as part of a crew due to no cover being available.  We were still sent to jobs like normal, but we would have asked for back up if the patient was to ill to be transported by us alone as I would have been in the back.  As it was, it was actually a quiet night for us.  There were 4 crew’s on that night, and 2 had a quiet night, while the others were run ragged.

Our 1st job was to a patient who had taken some cocaine but became to violent so was left in the care of the Police.  We had got the call from the Police and we told Control that we would go and assess before any decision’s were made.  When we got there the patient was not really with it so we gave him some oxygen and got him on our carry chair.  Thing’s started to go downhill from here, and we we had got him on the back lift, and virtually on to the ambulance when he kicked off.  It was to dangerous for the Police to try and restrain him, and we weren’t going to try, so he was allowed to get off, and was then promptly arrested.  I would have been surprised if the hospital would have taken him in, a Police presence would have been necessary.  A job later in the night outside a local nightclub resulted in us getting a glass thrown against the ambulance.  We were inside treating a patient when there was a large smash against the side of the vehicle.  Luckily there was no damage but I hope the imbecile that threw the glass never has need of an ambulance that has been taken out of service due to some damage caused.  Later on in the shift we had a patient who had had a hypoglycaemic attack, and had taken step’s to remedy the situation (2 bottles of Lucozade and some biscuits), but for some reason they had been unsuccessful.  Even after a tube of hypostop from us didn’t alter the situation, and rather than keep giving the patient glucose, we took her to hospital for further assessment.  That ended our shift and I headed home to bed.

After my sleep, I usually get about 8 hours, I felt unusually tired, like I wanted to go straight back to sleep.  During the shift, I felt like rubbish and luckily we had some time on standby that I could have a little nap, and I’m glad to feel a whole lot better afterward’s.  It really is suprising how much better a little nap can make you feel.  This was also the shift in which I had my first allergic reaction.  It wasn’t to serious, and he was given some IV Piriton which resolved his symptoms nicely.  Adrenaline was being considered but the Pirition did the trick before it was necessary.  We also went to a lady who had had a fall, but we couldn’t get into the property and so had to wait for some family to come a let us in.  There was a brilliant night sky, and as such, all the heat at ground level had evaporated, and all the was left were 3 freezing ambulance personnel. We took it in turn’s in talking to the patient and sitting in the heated ambulance!  The morning though it was perishingly cold, and my car had actually frozen up from the inside.  My dad think’s that it’s because I had left the vent’s open which let that -3 degree air in.

It’s the course Christmas night out on Thursday, and the work’s Christmas drink’s on the Friday, so I will be back on day’s on Saturday and then 2 day’s off.  Next week I am working Tues-Thurs day’s and then I’m off home.  I can’t believe that it’s the middle of December, as long as everything goes well, I’ve got just over 7 month’s left.  Scary!

TP

When I see this video, I know then that’s it really is Christmas time.  My housemate’s think that I’m sad for listening to it, but I thought I would share it with you…..

TP

Well, from the title of this post, I’m sure that you can guess what I’m going to be talking about.  It was on Tuesday’s night shift last week, and we got the call at about 4.45am.  The job had come up on the screen with it’s usual AMPDS code, but at the bottom of the detail’s, the controller can usually add a little note, on which it said “contraction’s getting stonger”.  The address was quite some distance away and took us about 15 mintues to get there from what I remember.  We have special ‘Matpacks’ on the ambulance’s that contain everything that should be needed when delivering a baby such as a pair of scissor’s, a towel, a mucus extractor and a few other thing’s.  I was also told to take in a vomit bowl, as this can be useful when the placenta is being delivered for later inspection by the midwife. 

During the journey, we had two update’s, one saying that the baby was on it’s way out, and then another saying that the baby had been born about 30 sec’s before we got there.  We went in, and as we were walking up the stair’s, we heard the baby crying which is always a good sign.  The mother was holding the baby, as the umbilical cord was still attached and so after checking the everything was ok with the baby, and that the cord had stopped pulsating, the father was able to cut the cord.  The midwife had been requested enroute to the house, and as she was on call, she wasn’t at the house until the placenta had been delivered.  The placenta was a little tricky as it took a while for it to get going, and the mother had to shift to the end of the bed so that gravity could help it’s exit.  This is what the vomit bowl is used for, to collect the placenta, and also so that it doesn’t make even more of a mess, or get damaged so when the midwife inspects it, she may think it is not all there.  After doing a few obs on mom, she went and waited down stair’s for the arrival of the midwife and to spend some time with her new daughter.  When the midwife arrived, she also had to check over mom, and due to dad looking after their other children I got to have a hold of the baby.  After I went with the midwife to look over the placenta, and she said that she was suprised that she was doing some teaching at 5.15am! After making sure one last time that everything was ok, we bid our goodbye’s and left.

It was strange as at the beginning of that night shift, I had said “I want a baby tonight”, so I was told that if I ever come into work again and request job’s, they were going to sew me mouth up!  This was a good job to be a part of, providing what little help we did, although I still want to see a full labour.

It was quite strange though as we had another job to go to after this one, a fall.  It just show’s how random and totally different this job can be, which is probably why I like it so much!

TP