Leaderboard

@ Timmy....... Your clinical experience sounds pretty involved and seems to really incorporate the book work during the clinical rotation as well as a bit of a guarantee to get in on some of the action with someone there to facilitate it. I'd love to have a bit of that in my program! Since I'm not required to do those fun extras your program requires, I do test myself where I can. Any time I push a drug, if time allows, I go back and read up on it for memorization purposes. Even if it's a drug I'm already familiar with, it doesn't hurt to learn a few more side effects and whatnot. @ Dwayne........ I've been working what seems to be a slow shift... Sunday mornings. It's not uncommon that we spend the first couple hours of the day stocking and cleaning rooms, which I'm happy to do until the "after church rush" begins. I'm definitely going at my next shift with a little more aggression and if they think me a pest, so be it. I'm almost done with my ER time and there's quite a bit more I want to know and practice before I head on to specialty areas and ambulance time. Love the OB story! We aren't required to actually deliver as it is up to the mother if we can be present, but I think I will spend 16 hours in OB, so there is hope! I've heard it's easier for women to get into the delivery room than men so, my fingers are crossed! As for my CNA experience, the only thing I'm holding onto there is patient interaction. It was nice knowing a few basics like how to take vitals and some of the drugs I use to give in the group homes but, that's as far as it went. I've been stalking some of the more medical related posts but, haven't had the urge to toss in my three cents yet. Some of it is still a little over my head and I'm taking it all in... all in due time.

Holy shit Andrea, I'll tell you what, the way you present yourself here bodes well for your paramedic future.. Smart, introspective, you evaluate each piece of advice and accept or reject it on what appear to be very rational, logical premises removed from your personal feelings. And your 13 years as a nursing assistant? Are you kidding me? You had very little, if anything to gain from Basic experience, so if there is any of that nonsense floating around in your head, let it go, you have more important things for those brain cells to do. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone these last few weeks, watching you, and Beiber, and....damn it, their names escape me at the moment, but you'll know who I mean when you read their posts. (Speaking of which, where the hell is Ugly?) You all are like, what, about 12 years old? Smart, strong, super committed! I'm not sure if it's the rash of "Screw the grammar nazis! I want to spell like I'm 6!!" that has caused me to lower my bar a lot or if we are just being blessed with a bunch of wickedly smart new folks? I guess it doesn't matter in the end. Anyway... Another thing occurred to me from Herbie's post, and that was about being useful. I decided just for shits and grins to jump on the rooms of the nurses that seemed to be more inclined to teach, clean and decon them as soon as the pt was out if I wasn't busy doing something else on the theory that if they had less other work to do then perhaps they would have more time to teach me things. And it worked out just that way for me. I was soon being called to push meds, or insert IVs, etc, etc. Now, the danger here, is that it's not your job to clean rooms and you need to not allow anyone to come to believe that it is. I did this simply by ignoring anyone that ordered me to.. :-) I would clean like crazy for sweet nurse A, Asshole nurse B would say, "When you're done with that one, get my taken care of quick." But I just couldn't hear him/her. It really wasn't very long before many learned that the way to activate my hearing aids was to teach me something...anything! Within my scope, outside, didn't matter...It worked perfect for me. Also, I don't know if you have to deliver babies during your clinicals? We had to be present for a minimum of two live vaginal births. I didn't go to this clinical until later, not sure why, but I got to see most of my classmates come to hate it as they would sometimes have to go 5-10 12 hr shifts to have the vaginal births happening, and have the mother consent to allow them to watch...I was dreading it. But, I got really lucky. At the time I smoked, and I went out to smoke and noticed most of the expectant fathers were coming and going on a pretty regular basis, so I would watch for them to go out to smoke, follow them out, and say, "Hi! Hey, isn't it your girl that's giving birth inside? Yeah? You know, I"m a paramedic student and we're here to observe deliveries as it's out job to give lifesaving care to the mothers and new babies if they deliver outside of the hospital. But man, most people don't like to let us help. They don't seem to think that someday it may be their wives or kids I'll need to be smart enough to care for.." And every one said, "Well, do you want to watch our delivery? That would be great!" Then we'd go back into the hospital where the hubby would introduce me as some kind of mother/child saving hero that they should feel obligated to help educated, and all were. I participated in 5 live vaginal deliveries in my first 6 hrs of clinicals including one woman screaming the whole time to the doctor, "If he's never dropped a baby let Dwayne do it God damn it!" Which of course didn't happen, but I appreciated her vigor. Anyway, in my terribly long winded way what I'm trying to say is be creative. I've not seen you in a medical discussion yet, or one on morals and/or ethics, but I'm really looking forward to it as you're obviously smart. This is another game, just like medicine. Step back, take a look, think it through and figure out how to win it. There is not question in my mind that you are absolutely capable of doing so. Good luck. Keep posting, keep participating, you're going to be really good at this... Dwayne