Life of a Trainee Paramedic

Tomorrow is what I would class as the most important day of the course for me.  It’s our final practical exams day and we have four skill station’s to do:

Advanced Life Support, Paediatric ALS, Trauma and a Medical scenarios are the ones that are going to be on offer tomorrow, and all in all should take around an hour to complete.  We have the 1st years helping us out, so at least they are going to know what we want of them when we ask them.  I’m not nervous as such, although I know I will be when I’m sat there waiting.  I just hope that I remember to do everything correctly, and get them out of the way 1st time.  I’ll be the 1st to admit that I don’t know everything, but I hope that what I do actually know, which when I think about it is quite a lot, I, and the rest of my course, should be able to pass them.

If I do, then I’m heading home for a few days before I start nights on the weekend, and if not, then I will be doing them again on Thursday and then going out for a drink with everyone on the night to hopefully celebrate.

Wonder when I’m going to be able to get to sleep?!

TP

Yes, the title of this post is not a joke! On certain week nights, the swimming pool I go to has late opening times, so today I planned to go.  When it came near the night, I got into my swim shorts and started packing my bag ready to go out, and started looking for my brand spanking new goggles.  My old ones steam up after just one length so I spent £11.99 getting some brand new, anti-fog ones.  I actually bought two pairs so I could keep one at home.  Now I opened them in my room, adjusted them in my room, and then left them in my room.  That was a week or so ago, and they have vanished! I have searched the room from top to bottom, got my 2 housemates to help me look, but still no goggles.  It’s not as if they are really small and hard to find, they are in there own little cases, so where the heck have they gone?  I’m less annoyed that they are lost, I’m more annoyed that I just bought the buggers, so I’ve just gone and ordered myself another set. Just the one this time though.

This come after reading Mr Man’s recent blog about something very similar.  Perhaps something is in the air?

TP

These are 2 great clips……

Well this weekend has been quite eventfull for several reasons.  The first was Friday night due to us being called to the local prison, which is very close to the hospital.  Since I began this course, I have never been there before, but that night, we actually went twice, which was quite strange.  I personally don’t think that I would be able to cope very well in prison, certainly not ones in which you can’t actually leave! It also showed me how totally stuffed you would be if the patient was seriously ill, it takes a hell of a long time to get in and out, for obvious reasons.

The second, was how may drunk patients that we have had this weekend.  Every other set of weekend nights that I have worked, we have never really had any, or just the one here and there, but this weekend, the unable-to-stand-incapable-of-drinking-responsibly people seemed to be out in force.  It doesn’t bother me so much when they are drunk, and co-operative, it’s when they are un-cooperative that it can be a little annoying!

The third was on my last shift, which has got to be the quietist shift that I have ever worked, a grand total of 3 jobs, with the last one coming right at the end, making us late off, which was irritating considering how much time was spent doing nothing during the shift.  The good thing about this shift though was 2/3 patient’s were actually ill, and I was able to really get hands on, doing the job that I’m training to do.  I gave some drugs that I’ve never seen be given before and I managed to get both 18g cannula’s, which was a suprise to me (and my mentor).  I think I’m finally getting a technique, instead of changing the way I do it each time.  Thankfully though, I’ve never actually missed them when it’s been important.

I’ve got an afternoon at Uni on Thursday, and then 2 day shifts Saturday and Sunday so we will see what I get to do then!

On Saturday, I was able to lead at a trauma job, and I made the decision to board and collar the patient.  The patient was drunk, and he only seemed to respond to my ‘calm voice’ (his words), rather than the dislike he took to my mentor. This made me laugh somewhat, and gave me a little ammunition for the evening!

I’m at home for a few days now seeing family, and continuing with an essay, so it should hopefully be a chilled couple of weeks.

TP

On Thursday we had a multiple choice question paper, 50 questions on anatomy and physiology.  We had to get 40 to pass, and I was glad that I got 44!

Some of the ones that I got wrong I didn’t have a clue about, with some of them being in the category ‘nice-to-know’ in my opinion, rather than the important ‘need-to-know’.  This was because I believe that in an emergency situation, it would not matter exactly what artery a patient was bleeding from, you would still treat them the same for any kind of blood loss, or hypovolaemic shock. 

We have our practical exams in just over 2 weeks time, and we have 2 Uni days of practice left between now and then.  I’ve got 4 nights in a row to work from tonght but due to all the rota’s changing at the beginning of the month for Call Connect, for these shifts we don’t start until 19.30.  For every other shift that I have done, they have always been 6.45 or 18.45 starts, so it’s going to be horrible looking at the clock tomorrow morning knowing that I still have 45 minutes to go.  I’m sure that I’ll get used to it though.

Enjoy the Weekend!

Hello again! It has been a month since I last posted, which is absolute rubbish, so I apologise for that.  This last month has been incredibly busy with lots of things going on at work, at uni, and at home. 

I had 2 weeks at home for the Easter break, and it was nice to be back, although my nan isn’t doing to good, so it was a sad time also.  For the past few holidays, when I’ve been at home, a lot of time has been spent doing uni work, and this holiday was no different.  We have 2 course related essays to do, and 2 definitely not course related essays! The course ones are quite interesting, and I actually like doing them as I feel as though I’m learning something.  The others are not related to Paramedic practice one little bit, but we have to do them, or we fail the entire course! Thankfully one of them got handed in today, and I’ve a few weeks before the next lot have to be in.

We have a multiple choice question paper on thursday, 50 questions from anything over the whole 2 years.  Our lecturers have been putting up practice ones which we could have a go at, and I havn;t done to badly on them, although in this test we need to get 80% to pass, rather than the 40% for all the essays that we do.  Our practical exams are also assessed differently, so for anyone reading this who think’s we only need 40% to pass those, don’t worry, we need to know what we are doing.

I did a few shifts before I wnet home for Easter, and they were with a Paramedic that I go out with when my Mentor is not working.  These were his last ever shifts as he handed in his notice, after being in the ambulance service for over 20 years.  I’m glad that I got to work with him, and felt that I did learn a lot from him, so as thanks I gave him a bottle of red wine.  Not being a red wine fan, I found myself asking this random girl looking at them, and she directed me to the nice ones.  She seemed French to me, and after seeing the French First Lady recently, I’ve decided French is good!

At the beginning of May, I will have my last practical exams, which I’ll hopefully pass 1st time, and then my last ever piece of work gets handed in on the 19th May, subject to me passing everything that is.  I’m hoping that I can enjoy the last few months of my course on placement, and not have to worry about any work that I still have to do.  It’s going to be very weird not being a student anymore after 5 years, but I’m looking forward to it.  I like going to Uni, it’s just all the work that I have to do to go with it, and personally I’ve had enough of writing essays!

I’ll hopefully be going back into theatres to finish off my intubation, and then if all goes well, everything will have been submitted for the exam board.  We get our results in the middle of July and then I’ll have a few months off before I go back to the States for a month.  I don’t think there is a day that goes by without me actually thinking about going away.  I need to forget about it, which will hopefully make it come round really quickly!

I’m hoping all my placement knowledge will come together and I can be more confident when making decisions.  At the moment, I say I want to do something, and even though I pretty sure that it’s the right decision, I look to my mentor for the nod.  I’m going to working 4 night shifts this weekend, the 1st lot of nights that I’ve done since January due to different things croping up.

Here’s to a happy thursday!

TP