A Post about School and Not (much) about Kenneth Stokes!

I’m still fired up about the comments that Jackson, MS city councilman made about AMR (and all of EMS)’s policy on scene safety.  An article that ran in the Clarion-Ledger included a quote from another city council member who said he was “surprised” at all of the outrage this situation has caused.  While I don’t now know he could be surprised, he did say that he believes EMS should wait for the police to clear potentially dangerous scenes so I will give him credit on that one.  My hope is that one day our elected officials will realize that EMS is not a “public safety” agency so much as it is out of hospital medical care.  EMS is starting to stand up and I’m proud to say that I have a part in that.

The revolution has begun, only just begun.

As for school, it’s going mostly well.  The last couple of tests have been a bit of a challenge.  I haven’t done nearly as well on those tests as I had hoped but I’m working hard to change that.  I actually started this post last night but stopped to look over stuff for the test that I had this morning.  I also looked over stuff that we went over today just a little while ago so that delayed the completion of this post a bit more.  However, that’s something that I’m willing to sacrifice to further my performance in class.  Overall, today was bad.  My min and my confidence were completely shot.  But, after some time with my wonderful wife and a nice soak in the tub, all was right again.  It’s going to be fine, I just have to work a bit harder than I have been.

Second best is something that I don’t expect out of myself, not do I accept it.  I strive to be the best at everything I do and my education is not an area that I’m willing to take shortcuts.  I’ve never been challenged like this before and I honestly love it.  I’m eager to see what’s next.

I also have two clinicals under my belt now.  The first was an ER shift at a busy hospital nearby.  I was worn slam out by the time I got home but I got some good contacts and got to practice many skills, BLS and even some ALS alike.  I got my first successful IV on the first attempt in the ER!  I also administered some meds, did vitals and other things.  All in all it was a great experience.  This past Friday I had my OB shift.  It wasn’t as eventful as the first ER shift I worked (I only had two patients and didn’t see any births) but I still got some skills practice.  This week I’ll have another ER rotation and I’m already looking forward to practicing more of my skills and working on assessments and such.  This week also holds a critical on IO initiation and a check off on port access.

Work continues to be more and more interesting with each shift.  The things we run across in the rural setting never cease to amaze me.  Of course, I can’t get too detailed with what we do but the things that people will call EMS for is astounding.  For those in EMS I’m sure I can’t tell you anything that you haven’t heard before but for anyone who’s not riding the war wagon… well, let’s just say that a lot of it is less than life threatening.  However, we often run into those patients who are ill due to the poor decisions they make.  Specifically, I’m speaking of substance abuse.  Please, especially if you have health problems limit or eliminate intake of alcohol and for sure don’t ingest illegal drugs.  The consequences could be extremely detrimental to your health.  A patient I had over the weekend was reminded of that the hard way (as you may have guessed, this wasn’t their first ETOH rodeo).

So that’s that with me at the moment.  This week I’m back in the ER and I’m looking forward to getting my glove covered hands dirty (and clean again between patients).  This is only the beginning and so far I’m enjoying my journey on the Quest For the Disco Patch.  Please, if you have any tips on achieving balance between school, home, work and everything else feel free to pass them along.  I’ll gladly take all the help I can get on this road I’ve started on.

Jonathan

The First Week

Here I am, “live” from my couch.  I’m a little wetter because my wife and I went to see the football game the high school where she teaches is playing in.  Then the monsoon started so we left.  One of the advantages of not working the ballgames is that I can leave if/when we want to.  It’s nice to be back home and relaxing, especially since I begin my 48 tomorrow morning.

My first full week of paramedic school – minus clinicals (we should begin those sometime in September) – is history.  We’re still in the midst of what amounts to an EMT-Basic refresher but I’m thankful for that since I haven’t gotten to use all of my skills during the year that I’ve been in EMS.  In class we’ve been going through the first chapter and I have to say that I’m impressed so far.  In talking about the roles, characteristics and responsibilities of a medic has been an emphasis on CE and research.  These are among the areas that lots of people in EMS have been striving for for a while.  I’m glad that my textbook advocates for these areas.  Of course, this should not be a huge surprise since Dr. Bryan Bledsoe was one of the writers of my book (he also co-wrote my pre-hospital pharmacology book).

Overall, I’m having a blast with learning new things, being refreshed on some skills that I haven’t gotten to use and getting to know my classmates.  I may have mentioned it before but it seems that we’ll be a really good group.  We’re all still in the getting to know each other stage but we’re all having a good time.  I’m thankful that there are a couple of coffee drinkers besides me.  I think coffee will be in good supply in our class.

So that’s pretty much been my week in a nutshell.  Tomorrow I’m starting my weekly 48 at my paid EMS job and I’m looking forward to a good weekend.  I’m hoping I’ll be able to work on more of my drug cards and do some studying between calls.  I’ll tweet when and what I’m able to on Facebook and Twitter so please follow me (you can find this info on the Contact page).  I hope you have a great weekend, wherever you may be!

Jonathan