Life of a Trainee Paramedic

Well this weekend of shifts has been really, really good.  Apart from the fact that it was with some of the nicest weather that we have had in a long time, I got to be left in the back with a lot more patients on my own, as my Mentor trusted me to handle the patients, and let him know if I needed  help.  Admittedly most of the patients were not that ill, but that’s not the point.  He was allowing me to gain experience of being in the back on my own, and monitoring the patient as I think appropriate.

On Friday we were late off by an hour due to a transfer that we had to do.  We would have got off on time if we hadn’t hit the traffic jam of a accident that clogged up all the roads, and then on the way back with another patient, we actually came across at an accident at the same place as the previous one, so we had to stop and help out there before another crew could come and take over for us.  Our patient wasn’t time-critical so it didn’t matter to much.  As I was being left in the back with this patient, at first he was very quiet and I thought I’m not going to be doing much talking, but then all of a sudden I found myself talking about all things Politics: the Middle East, Northern Ireland, America, Cyprus, Israel/Palestinian conflict, Gordon Brown.  The patient, even though elderly, was very knowledgeable on the subjects and wanted to know my opinions so we had a good discussion.  The patient who we transferred first, seemed to be some sort of gigolo in his youth, saying that there were around 70 girls in his town for only a few guys, so he had his pick of them all.  Here was I thinking that it’s only today’s society that is quite promiscuous, but it seems that it was more well hidden in the olden days.  I’m glad he was a chatty guy though, makes the journey a whole lot better.

Saturday was a nice steady day, I gave Glucose 10% for the first time to a patient, after having the most un-cooperative cannulation ever.  As the patient was having a hypo, he wasn’t very cooperaitve, and so even though he knew he was getting a needle in him, it didn’t stop him yanking his arm away as soon as I punctured his skin.  If it wasn’t for my mentor grabbing the patient’s arm, and a whole lot of luck, then I doubt I would have managed to keep it in.  My mentor could hardly contain his look of suprise when he realised I had actually managed to get it in.  I was quite pleased with myself after that.  I had my first case of meningitis after, and although already diagnosed as viral meningitis, there was nothing that could be done, as the patient was pregnant and any treatment could harm the baby, which is why she was sent home, but her symptoms got worse, and so we were called to take her back again.  She was more cooperative when I cannulated her.

Sunday was one of the easiest shifts that I’ve done, only 3 jobs in 12 hours.  Now in the winter, I would probably have been bored stiff, but as it was sunner, I opened all the doors in the back, had the radio on, and got ourselves an ice cream.  We found out the everyone else had been really busy, we were obviously in the right place at the right time.  Our last job involved a rather serious RTC between a motorcyclist and a car, and the motorcyclist had sustained a serious head injury which involved us calling out a doctor from the hospital.  As there were a few casualty’s, my mentor had to travel on the other ambulance to help with the serious patient, while I travelled with the non-serious and helped sort them out.  That’s the only problem with knowing mostly what to do now, I can be left to get on and do things, missing out on watching the ‘good’ stuff to learn before I qualify.  I didn’t mind though as I knew I would most likely be in the way when they were treating him on the road so I was happy to sort the others out.

So even if you see an ambulance sitting somewhere seemingly doing nothing, or getting themselves an ice cream or something, just remember this, that were “Not paid for what we do. Paid for being ready to do it.” - this was taken from Trauma Queen’s blog, and it is very true.

I’m on nights Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and then I have my final piece of work in for Monday and then it’s just placement until the end of June.  Where have these 2 years gone?

TP