Being a medic, the roller coaster(part 2)

 It takes a little time to "get your numbers" so you can apply and hopefully get a job. When I did get them I applied right away with MedStar EMS. After being hired by an EMS service you have to do several ride-along shifts with training officers, supervisors, or senior staff just to learn the way that service does things. You learn their paperwork, dispatch procedures, how to drive lights and sirens, and how to treat patients within their protocols. As luck would have it, one of the rides I had was with a senior and well-known medic. I would like to say that was a good experience for me, but it was not. I rode in the back all night and learned nothing. That was not a good experience for me, but it taught me what not to do when I have people riding with me. 


Once I was cleared to ride by myself I dove in head first. I rode with all kinds of people and took away things from each of them. I watched how each medic talked to patients, assessed them, and treated them. I saw good things to do and, saw things that I would never do again. I guess you could say that I was a kid, and the medics that I rode with were my parents and I was always watching them. Some things I would agree with and others I thought I would never do that when I grow up.


I started off part-time but worked as many hours as a full-time employee. I was working full-time on the airfield as a helicopter mechanic and then working overnight as an EMT. I would work with anyone, any shift that I could get, and take trips out of town(even if I had to take time off from my day job, don't tell anyone though). I was burning the candle at both ends but I loved working the streets on the ambulance, I loved everything about that job. 


I had been working with MedStar for about 8 months when I was asked by one of my favorite medics if I wanted to come full-time and be her EMT. I had worked with her numerous times and we got along really well, I had been warned by several people that she was a tough woman to work with. I never saw anything that I had been warned about, I worked hard to learn something on every call and I did everything she asked. I really got the feeling that the people who saw her in a negative light didn't want to do what it took to be a better partner. 


Over the next several years I would lose 1 partner and gain another. All of the medics that I was with had a minimum of 15 years experience on the street, they were great at what they did and they loved to teach. We constantly had students on our truck so I got the benefit of working and learning as the students were learning. I took advantage of this until I started medic school and all the way through school. When I started school I felt overwhelmed but I did have an advantage seeing what I was learning on the unit, it gave me what I call "Aha moments". I saw how the medicines that we were learning about worked in real life, I saw the heart rhythms that I was learning in real life so that made it all easier. 


As you go through medic school you have to do ride-along time on the ambulance, time in the OR, in labor/delivery, in the psychiatric unit, ICU, and in the ER. As I went through medic school I was still working 2 full-time jobs, so I took vacation time from the EMS job to clinicals. I did this so I wouldn't have to spend more time away from my family. On one EMS clinical in the middle of the night, we were sent to a high-end hotel downtown for a person with chest pain. We arrived on the scene to find an older gentleman complaining of chest pain and his wife was definitely in charge of their house. She told us that we were not going to do anything for/with her husband until we talked to the patient's cardiologist in Beverley Hills. The next thing I knew there was a phone pushed in my face and it was Dr. Smarterthanme, he asked me what was going on with his patient, what our treatment plan was, and where we were taking the patient too. I gathered all my confidence up and the Dr. what he wanted to know, he said "Sounds good" and that was it. We transported that patient to the hospital without incident. The next morning while at my day job, I looked up the patient and he was a very famous man, who was also very nice. 


With the above experience and another involving someone who thought they were someone important, I came up with this saying..."You know the sound a rich man makes when they stop breathing? The same as a homeless man."


The chaos persists, but so do I...


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