PCP

Well I did my second shift on my last days off from the mine site and it was a good shift. Had lots of calls along with a great partner. Ended up getting four seprates! We have different shift patterns and I was working a " fox " shift which means I get paid a different wage while being at the station on call waiting for a call to come in. Once I get paged I am on the clock and I get paid my full pay for a minimum of three hours. I can do one call in those three hours or three calls but still get paid my full wage for those three hours. Once those three hours are up I go back to my other wage until I get paged out again. In that shift I got paid for 12 hours at my full wage and 4 hours at my on call wage. We did not do anything exciting for calls just mostly routine calls with one code 3 for an MVA which turned out to be nothing and we were cancelled by the police. Our thinking was the car had gone in the ditch during the night and someone in the morning drove by the car in the ditch and called 911. I just wanted to say " Thank You " to all of you who for your positive comments and to let you all know that I had a great second shift and I am looking forward to working at my new station. Stay safe everybody! Brian

Being a Paramedic is more than just dealing with death on every shift. Yes there are times you are going to have someone die in your care. You learn to deal with it as many have said. People die and you have to be confident that you did everything that you could with your training to save this person and sometimes its not enough! Most will agree when I say " Being a Paramedic is a GREAT job with lots of ups and downs." I am fairly new to EMS and have had a few bad calls but I have never not wanted to go back to work as I love my job and I know not everybody is going survive. You learn from each call you do and how to cope with each bad call that you do. For me just talking about it helps. The best feeling is when your patient looks at you and says " Thank you " with a smile on their face. I don't need someone telling me how great of a job I did or a medal. If in a 13 hour shift if I get 1 smile and a thank you from a patient I am happy and I know I have done my job well. As Paramedics and most will agree with me when I say " We take pride in what we do and when someone says that they want to go to medic school so that they can become a firefighter we take it personal as it is like they are saying being a Paramedic is not good enough!. " I am not saying that is what you you where saying by your original post but that is how I feel when I hear comments like that. The only way you are going to know if you handle seeing a dead body is when you see one! I hope you enjoy your EMT-B calss and that you fall in love with being a medic and you stick with it. You can do what ever you want and I am sure you will do well at being a medic or firefighter. All the best to you and please keep posting and asking questions. There are lots of GREAT medics on this site who will give you a straight answer to your questions. Brian

In our email it stated pretty much the same thing paramedicmike. under scope of practice, job responsibilities and duties it states " we are to supervise observers on car and/ or related duties " Its just a sore subject with many of the employees as they feel that they should be paid extra to show an observer what goes on during a call or around the station while we sit and watch hockey waiting for that pager to tone! I feel preceptors should get paid extra as they are putting themselves in a position to where they are responsible for this students safety and making sure the patient gets the best care.

Within in our EMS system our preceptors get paid a "little" extra on the days that they have a student. Now as a student you get one day where you go out and ride with a crew and in the past it has been with a crew that has a preceptor working on car that day so that they can show them the ropes and the preceptor would get paid extra that day. Now on the ride along that day the student does not touch a patient or even use the equipment they are only there to observe. Within our system we just received a "memo" stating that a student can be placed with all paramdics preceptor or not for their observation day. I personally don't have a big problem with that because I look at it as if this person is a new employee and is getting an orientation to the job which they are inasense. I know I can show them how to use the equipment and fill out a PCR ( patient care report ) among other things. The discussion is that why as non preceptors should we teach this students how to do the job and how about pt. confidentiuality, scene safety, among other things. My question is to those of you who are preceptors within your organization do you feel that you should get paid that extra money even though the student is riding as an observer only also what are your thoughts on a student riding for their first time out on car with a crew where neither of them have taken the preceptor training or might be fairly new to the system? Do you as a preceptor get paid extra within your EMS system on the days that you precept?

Hey Dwayne hope all is good in your world! It might be tough at the beginning being the new guy but at least there are 5 of us new guy's starting at the station. I am excited to be working in my home town being able to help the people that live in my community. I am not going to judge anybody or the station just by doing 1 shift at the station as I know there are alot of good paramedics tht work out of the two stations in town. I am going to take this opportunity that I have to learn as much as I can from the ALS and vetran crews before I head off and start working full time in Vancouver in another year or two. I will stay away from the negative energy and only give off good energy as I am not one to complain when things go bad or someone kicks me in the balls. I learn from everything that I do and try to always turn a negative into a positive. I heard the comment " We eat our own " I believe we do that as paramedics but I like to think that those paramedics that give other paramedics a hard time are just burned out and trying to make themselves feel or look better. I know I am better than that and will not play into their little game! Brian

Thank you for your support Happiness. I do hope I work with great partners and I'm sure I will and I am sure I will work with not so great partners. Its their loss if they choose not to get to know me. I stay out of the political stuff and show up and have fun and do my job and thats the plan. I also plan on letting my partners know that I am fairly new and if they see something I am missing or have done wrong please tell me as I would rather hear from them then my Unit chief. I also feel that is a great way to learn is by vertran paramedics who are willing to take the time to teach us junior paramedics. Cprted I have heard that saying before and not sure why they call it that, as I feel Surrey is alot worse than Nanaimo as I have lived in Nanaimo most of my life and we don't get many shootings if 1 a year. I will soon find out what I am made of and see how think my skin is!

Well my first shift at my new station did not go very well to say the least. It all started when I was at home with my 22 month old twins and my wife having a nice dinner when the phone rang at 18:15 and it was scheduling from Vancouver. They said I was suppose to be working that night at the downtown station on 20 fox and the shift started at 18:00. I was sure I was not suppose to be working that night as I had my schedule posted on my fridge but it turned out they had sent out a new schedule and called my house but the babysitter did not pass the message along. Any ways I live ten minutes at the most from the station so I was there fairly quickly but course my car had broken down on my way home from the mine site a day earlier so I left in Campbell River along with my stethescope, scissors and pen light thinking I was not scheduled to work my first shift until the 15th of this month. So at this point I was a little frustrated and nervous all at the same time due to being late for my first shift and starting a new station. My first page out came in at 19:15 for a abd. laceration and ALS and fire would be responding as well. I have never done a layered call before with ALS so course that gets me even more nervous since I don't know what they are going to expect from me when they arrive. Anyways, on arrival an RCMP member pulls up at the same time along with ALS right behind us and fire. When I walk in the house and find the patient young femal laying on the bathroom floor with a 3 inch laceration across her abdomen with minimal bleeding. So I start my Primary assessment A,B,C, and D sure enough she said she had a syncope episode and hit her head. I was getting the hx while I was applying a abd pad to the wound to stop the bleeding. I feel do to being so nervous and working with a new partner and ALS I did not take C-Spine as quick as I should have so one of the fire guy's stepped in and asked if I wanted him to take C-Spine and I " Yes please ". To make a long story short I guess a certain fire guy or two where standing around making comments while I was doing my call and making eye contact suggesting that I was not doing a good job and a few other unnecessary comments. I was not aware of this since I was focused on my patient but my partner over heared their comments and stepped in and spoke to their captain and told him that I was new and to ask his guy's to shut the f#@k up! So we finished call and made our way to the hospital and handed the patient over to the ER staff. After words I maid the comment to my partner " So I guess you can tell I am new eh?" His reponse was " No Shit " That was when he told me about the comments that he over heard and told me not to worry about it, which I didn't as I don't care what some firefighter has to say or any other person for that matter as I am fairly new and have not had much exposure to the world of EMS. The rest of the night went okay. I have had better shifts and I know once I get use to working in a busier station with different paramedics and ALS I will calm down. It's just hard to sit there at a station as the new guy and have people not talk to you and course you don't want to say something that might give the other paramedics a bad impression of you. It is hard to explain as most of you have never been to Vancouver Island and no where I am talking about and the size of the town I am now working in but compared to the other towns I have worked in this is much larger with approx. 80-90 thousand people with two ambulance stations within the town. I have been told that some of the paramedics are going to give me a hard time since I am new but most of them are good and will help me learn which is what I am hoping to do. Eyes and Ears Open and mouth shut along with being respectful and having the passion to learn will help me to be accepted into the station. Next shift is on the 15th of this month so I am hoping things go better than my first shift did. Oh and alway remember to make sure the jump kit is closed before you pick it up cause if you don't everything falls out when you pick it up! OOPS LOL great way to end the shift. As one paramedic said to me that night when he found out I was new to the station " Welcome to Hell " Should have guessed that was how my night was going to go!

Thanks for your comments fiznat and I after my night shift tonight at the mine site which usually is quiet I am scheduled for holidays which at this time I am going to see my Cardiologist and getting this taken care of. I have done some research on PSVT and the things you mentioned that causes tachycardia was also mentioned in the books I have read. Not saying that any of those reasons is why I expereienced those two episodes but I am working on changing my life style! Thank you for taking the time to post your comments. I plan on taking it easy with my family over the next few weeks and I am looking forward to resolving this problem I experienced.

Jokes I was told by a friend who has been married for 40 years! First joke There are three rings in marriage and they are: 1# Engagemant Ring 2 # Wdding Ring and 3# Suffering Second Joke my wife said she would divorce me but didn't want to see me happy

Ha,Ha, sounds like the paramedic deserved to be puked on! Yes being new sucks and that is coming from a fairly new paramedic myself as I have not been working in the EMS system long about 3 years and I still get nervous on calls. you are going to have good days and bad days when working in EMS. In my opinion I would not say anything to who ever is going to read the report unless if they ask you your side of the story but thats just me. I have worked with other paramedics who are soft spoken and have had to ask them to repeat what they just asked for. Yes they get upset sometimes but I let it slide off my back as maybe they are just having a bad day or things at home are not going well and I continue on with my day and attempt to have fun with my partner even if they are grumpy and burned out! Hopefully next time you have a better experience. Before your next shift make sure you take extra time going through the car and ask as many questions as possible about the gear you are going to be using and know where it is kept. Especially the equipment that you use on each call. Good luck!

Great story!! Sure is nice to read about a accident that turns out good. Happy to hear the driver was okay and that you such a good team on your side. Did you find out what caused the accident?

Yes I did question myself on both calls and talked to both my partners who have both been working in the EMS field for 20 years each. They both said we did everything possible for the pt. The poor lady had a chance if the grandson had called for an ambulance when she said was experiencing crushing chest pain. My partner at the mine site who also my boss and just happened to be at the site that day said he felt comfortable leaving me with the pt. and transporting him to the hospital in my care as at the time we did not know what was wrong with the pt. and do to training he felt I was able to deal with what ever was happening with this pt. I am the only first aid attendant who is a Primary Care Paramedic that works for him and that is why he felt comfortable letting me be the one to transport this patient to town and if it was one of the other attendants who only had their OFA level 3 ticket he would have taken over the call and transported the patient. My boss mentioned to me whan I got back to the mine site he was impressed by me because I had the thinking to cut the patient's coveralls off and expose his entire body and that he would probably not have done that. Because I exposed my patient I was able to pick up the distension of his abdomen which he would have not of picked up on because he said he probably would have just exposed the abdomen at first then covered him back up. He thanked me for cutting the coveralls off and doing a full assessment like I did as he learned from me that day and it goes to show that even though he has been a paramedic for 20 years he can still learn from the jr paramedics. Thank you for all your support in this post to all of you. I have learned from both calls and I know that having a pt. die in your care is part of the job. I can say one thing for sure is after dealing with both calls that I have a better understanding of being able to tell the difference between pt that are really sick and those ones that are not as sick. I am still green and have lots to learn and always will learn from each and every call I do and hopefully will never stop learning! I am ready for my next patient!

Squint, I have TGA and had surgery at 6 months old. The Dr. put in a baffel between my chambers rather than switching the arteries back. The procedure I had is called " Post Mustard procedure " I am on no medications and never have been. That might change when I go and see my cardiologist in two weeks. My cardiologist has never said anything about WPW. I do have murmurs, but not sure what grade? I don't drink pop, energy drinks, chocolate, but do dirnk one or two cups of coffee a day which is very had for me to give up, as I have 21 month old twins at home and plus working shift work. I am working on it and hope to not be drinking coffee by next week! I had to use the pulse Ox to check my heart rate due to not have 12 lead monitor available at our ambulance station as we don't have ALS. I have never had a problem in past until that week and have not had any other episodes since. When I look back now on both times it happened I had not eaten much that day and had 3 large coffees!! I did do a in depth physical before hiring and no proplems came about. I am starting at a new station this month and I am not scheduled to start until after I have seen my cardiologist. I am working at the mine site still, just can't afford to be taking a month off work before seeing my dr. in Vancouver. Hope all is well with squint and that your summer is going well

Happiness thank for the tip on listening to the stomach for any swooshing sounds. I will remember that for next time. As Happiness has explained we do not do 12 leads in BC as a Primary Care Paramedic and we do not have Advanced Life Support in the town I was stationed at. My partner at the mine site and I discussed calling for a helicopter due to the pain the pt. was in but we did not know why the patient was in so much besides what he was telling me about his lower abdomen and groin. Its sucks to say, but now that I have had my first pt. with a triple AAA I hopefully will be able to recognize it sooner and hopefully get the person to where they need to be sooner. Not saying all triple AAA patients will show the same signs and symptoms as I am sure they don't. I feel good about the treatment that I gave to both my patients and I feel comfortable that I did everything that I could for them, just that it was out of my hands at that point. Thank you to everybody who commeted on this post. Brian

three weeks ago I was working and within a week I experienced two episodes of PSVT. The first time I working on a transfer car and we had just finished driving and I got out of the ambulance and I felt light headed, sick, and a little confused, along with some chest comfort. We had a nurse with us and he noticed I rubbed my chest and asked if I was okay. Of course I said yes. I finished transferring the patient from our cot to the other ambulance crews cot. Mean while still feeling light headed and sick with chest discomfort. I should add as well that I have something called Transposition of the the Great Arteries. Any ways I stood at the back of our ambulance and was hanging onto the back door when the nurse said get in and I will hook you up to my heart monitor. I handed my partner the keys and said you can dirve, not mentioning that I was not feeling well. I sat in the sit at the head end of the cot while he hooked up the leads and when he finished he turned on his machine and it with in seconds he told me to lay down on the cot and told my partner to drive code 3 to the hospital which was 1/2 an hour away. It turned out my heart rate was 284 beats a minute. He started line and took my BP which of course was high for me I believe it was 150/90 something. while in route I shifted and my heart rate dropped back to 137 and then slowly whent down to 110 and stayed there. I was released from the hospital within hours and was told to stop drinking coffee and working so much and to start eating better. They also mentioned that I need to reduce the amount of stress in my life. I was cleared to go back to work a within four days and again the following weekend after doing a cardiac arrest call an hour or so later I felt my heart racing again. So put on the pulse OX and it read 240 and that episode lasted about 5 minutes. Just as we reached the hospital I could feel my heart was not pounding and I felt fine. Same thing told to take time off and to rest. I have an appointment with my cardioligist who I see every two years in a few weeks. I did some research but could not find much to tell me what causes PSVT and what if anything I can do to prevent this from happening again. My quesiton is what typically causes PSVT? I know you can't give me any advice but any information about PSVT would be appreciated. Thanks.

Last week was my worst week so far since I began working in EMS and as a first aid attendant. Started off on a night shift when we paged out for a S.O.B call. On our arrival we got a hx from the fire dept. that the pt. was a diabetic and was complaining of back and was confused. The pt. was lying on the couch on her side and was moaning. I introduced myself and asked what was wrong? The pt. responded by stating that her back hurt. Airway was clear, breathing was laboured, and the pulse was weak, skin cold to the touch. RBS was remarkable, SpO2 was 89% on adult face mask, heart rate was between 79 and 86. My partner switched the adult mask to a non rebreather. I asked the pt. if she had suffered a fall due to the back pain and she said " Yes " and then said " No ". At that moment her grandson walked by and I asked him the same question and he responded with a " Yes " and then just kempt walking. My partner was getting the vital signs while I was trying to get more information from my patient. The grandson walked by again mentioned that he thinks she is an Asthmatic as well but was not sure? My partner said she had equal air entry bilatral to the bases. I questioned her if she was experiencing any chest pain? Her response was no. Mean while she kept on trying to sit up but would just slump back over. At this point I had the fire guy's bring in our clamshell and set up our cot at the top of the stairs located just outside of the basement sweat, as I made the decision at this time that my pt. was very sick and needed to be at the hospital. As the fire guy's where finishing up strapping the pt. to the main cot, I had a chance to ask the gransdosn who had called for an ambulance what had happened and what prompted him to call for the ambulance. That was when he told me a very vital piece of information. He stated that earlier in the day he had come down to check on his grandma and he found her laying on the kitchen floor which was around 1pm. He helped get up and from there she seemed to be okay, but said to him she was having CRUSHING Chest pain and felt like vomiting. I said thank you and walked away. As my partner and I where wheeling the pt. to the ambulance I mentioned the new information that I had just obtained. The fire guy's asked if we needed any help once we got the pt. loaded up and we said no thanks, but thank you for your help and we sent them on their way. within 2 minutes of sending them away our pt. when unresponsive on us. The pt. had gone into cardiac arrest. So with only two of us stuck in the back of the ambulance running the cardiac arrest call and doing a million things at once I mangaged to get my portable radio off my belt and radio dispatch requesting our kilo car to respond to our location code 3. It seemed to take for ever and of course it was one of the hottest days we had had all summer long. Once the other crew arrived my partner contacted the ED and he requested that we bring the pt. to the hospital due the arrest being witnessed and that we mangaged to get one shock. Once we arrived at the hospital we worked on her for about 15 minutes before the dr. pronounced her. For me this was a good call but also a not so good call. It was good because it was the first time inserting the OPA, nasopharngeal airway, as well as the King LT airway, hooking up the AED on a actual pt. and setting up the bag valve mask. In the past when doing a cardiac arrest I did not have my endorsemant for the KIng LT and typically the pt. was being ventilated by the fire guy's on our arrival. I was able to run the entire call from start to finish. I wish the outcome was better and I always think what could I have different. I couldn't believe the grandson had not mentioned to us on our arrival that previously in the day the pt. had been experiencing crushing chest pain. At least we would have had that information alot sooner and we would have probably loaded the pt. alot sooner and had been more prepared for any cardiac realted problems. Now the second thing that happened that week was I had just started my first shift at my full time first aid job at a mine site two days later when I got a call for a worker who could not stand up. I responded underground to find my pt. pale, cool, diapheretic and complaing of abd. and groin pain and vomiting. I did not waste much time underground and loaded him onto the stretcher and brought him to surface where I had the onsite ambulance waiting. No signs of trauma on my RBS and vital signs where stable. We are an hour and half away by ambulance to town and at this point I did not know what was wrong with my pt. I questioned him on having any chest pain, ulcers, diabetic, bowel momemants and his response to each question was No chest pain, no ulcers, not a diabetic, good bowel movemants. I could tell this guy was sick and needed to be at the hospital and my suspicion which I told him due to him asking was he had a internal bleed. But I was not 100% sure of course. The pt. was unable to sit still, so I was unable to get a BP the entire way to town, his heart rate was within the normal range, SpO2 was 98% on High flow O2. I administered Entonox for pain, but did not help him at all and also his SpO2 stats dropped to 90 so I put him back on HIgh flow O2. Abiout half way to town I popped my head through into the cab and told my driver to get me to the hospital as soon as he can cause at this point my thoughts had gone to thinking he might have been experiencing a Triple AAA due to some reading I had done and he was showing signs and symptoms of a triple AAA. I noticed when we were about 20 minutes from town that his abd. was slightly distended and for me that confirmed he had internal bleeding. After I gave my report to the attending nurse I stood back and listened to the dr. and he confirmed that it was a Triple AAA and that he was going to be flowen to another facility. I learned that night that he suffered a cardiac arrest while en route to the hospital in the helicopter. The following day was tough as I had to face his coworkers and answer questions by his coworkers and upper managemant as well as the mine inspector. I know things happen and I did all I could do for my patient, but when you acutally know the person and have had detailed conversations with that individual its harder seeing someone in so much pain and knowing you are doing everything you can for them and its not helping. Sorry for such a long post but I just wanted to share my experience of having my worst week so far since working in the EMS field. I just hope my next pt. I deal with has a better outcome than my past two pt's. Sure is different doing a call where you are talking to pt. then within minutes they are in cardiac arrest or you find out that they did not make it and you where the last person they may have seen or the last familiar face they had seen. Thanks for reading and be safe out there everybody. Brian

Congratulations!

Hi and welcome to the City! You will find some really helpful medics on this site who can answer pretty much any question you may have.

We have different shift patterns from 11hr, 12hr, and 13, 12, and 14hr night shifts. We have two bedrooms with two beds in each room. Typically we don't get much sleep on nights when working on the Alpha car (full time car), but on the Kilo shift it is usually a little slower. But you still don't get much sleep if you are staying at the station while on the back up car (Kilo car) because the full time car is usually busy enough that the crew is in and out of the station most of the night. So you get to hear their pagers go off. I am there to work not sleep and the busier we are the better!

I live in Nanaimo BC, work in Port Alberni for the BC Ambulance service part time. Full time at a mine site as a first aid attendant.