Life of a Trainee Paramedic

Well I finally have something to write about!!!!! Even though I have been working recently, I havn’t had anything to really write about until now.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been at uni more than usual attending lectures on inter-professional learning. This is completely misleading as I did not learn one thing about any of the other professions that were in my group, which included Nurses, Operating Department Practioners and, of course, Paramedics. These lectures were supposed to help us understand our role in the wider health community, but it completely failed in that regard. It had been 2 weeks of my life that I’m never going to get back. Thank God I’m never going to have to sit through another one of those lectures is all I can say!

I’ve been working Tuesday and Wednesday and then Saturday and Sunday this week with my 2 different mentor’s, one of whom is leaving in a couple of weeks. The first 2 shifts went fine, I got 2 out of 3 cannula’s in, and the one that I failed, the patient is believed to have had a parkinson-type disease, so as I inserted the cannula, they started moving, and therefore blowing the vein, or that is the excure I’ll use at least.

The weekend’s shifts have produced one of the most skill-related days I’ve had, and also the most time wasting call I have ever gone to - a cut finger! You might be thinking that a stanley knife had virtually severed it, but no, the patient had been reaching for a knife out of his girlfriends pocket (we decided not to ask why it was there), and cut himself. He apparantely started having trouble breathing and was haemorrhaging everywhere. When we arrived, I took a dressing, a swab, and some tape up with me so we could sort him out, and when I asked to have a look at his finger, which he had wrapped a tissue around, I honestly could not see where the cut was. Joking aside, I had to ask him where the cut actually was. It very closely resembled a PAPER CUT! His breathing was find, and there was hardly any evidence of blood. Even though I do find these jobs annoying, I don’t get as annoyed as my colleagues, who have been doing it a lot longer than me. I hope that I’m going to think ‘I’m getting paid £? to deal with this, it’s easy money. We shall see!

It’s getting very close to my final exams and essays and these next few month’s will be very busy for me. I’ve also got to fit the rest of my hospital placements in to finish off getting my tubes, and then pass everything else, and hopefully, by the exam board in June, that will be me done! It’s very scary that it’s been nearly 2 years that I’ve been on this course, and I’m going to be qualified soon, and it will be me with the responsibility. More and more now I am taking jobs that are the serious ones and making the clinical decisions on whether to give drugs, insert a cannula, and go in on blue lights as I don’t want to hang around. Today, was one of those days where we have go to hospital on blues or about 75% of the patients today, all being different in there own way. I’m looking forward to the day that my last essay is handed in, then I’m sure everyone off the course will be going out and celebrating. I just hope they go well!

TP