new emt

[Rinny]

Hi guys! My name is Erin, I'm 23 and from Indiana. The summer between high school and college I ended up taking a quick EMT certification course (which didn't really teach me very well) because I was going to go to school to be a PA and it gave me "health points" to help me get into the professional program. I ended up hating what I went into and ended up switching majors around and schools and right now I'm finishing a Psychology major, but just don't know what kind of career I will end up having with it. So I decided to take a course to certify as an EMT again while finishing my degree because I actually loved it when I had taken it before. To sum this up, I feel completely unprepared for it. I just finished all my state testing so I'm hopefully going to be working soon. If I love doing this I want to go on to be a paramedic- I just have reservations because I'm naturally a shy person at first and hate to mess anything up. If anybody has any advice on something that will help me prepare for what I'm getting into that would help me a lot. I feel like if someone threw me out there right now, I would not be confident at all. Thanks!

[fakingpatience]

I also took a while to be confident with my skills as an EMT. In my town, the agency I volunteered with had me as the third person on the ambulance. So I was never alone with the patient, I had a paid staff in the back with me. At first, I observed and took vitals and anything else the person directed me to do. As time went on, I started taking more of a leadership role on calls, to where eventually the other person in the back wouldn't do anything unless I specifically asked them to (or I was missing something vital!). For me this was the perfect way to be eased into the EMS field. I now work full time as an EMT, and am confident in my patient care skills, but still trying to learn more to better myself as a provider.

There are many people who are proponents of just "throwing you in there", sink or swim style of making you more confident in yourself. There is a time and a place for that, but I think that for myself, and others, if I had been thrown out there in the beginning, I would not be as confident in my skills.

Unfortunately, in my experience, most private agencies (or actually, any paid agencies) won't do a lot to boost your confidence. You are either ready to work or not. I recommend finding a place to volunteer where you can get your feet wet and build up your confidence in your EMS skills.

[DwayneEMTP]

Hey Rinnie, Welcome!

You just finished your state testing for what? Psychology? You should stick with that, you can get paid...

Being shy as a paramedic isn't a strength, that's for sure, but I've know medics that aren't exactly type A, in your face folks but I consider to be really good medics! And a few medics I've known that couldn't stand to have a round table call review debate become Godzilla on scene..most won't know until they try I think.

The bigger issue is the "being afraid to mess up" thing..Because you will, at least I believe most of us have. And when you do it can suck. But hopefully by the time you make medic you will come to understand that everyone screws up sometimes and most often someone suffers for it, accountant, judge,  cop, hooker, everyone. People tend to work from the point of view that "if a paramedic screws up, somebody dies!" yet that is very rarely the case. When I was a little bit younger medic I once bagged a pt into the ER, he had all of the s/s of hypoglycemia but I'd checked and his BGL was fine, followed up and it was still fine...I watched him degrade until I had to assist with vents, finally convincing myself that he was having a stroke. The doc ordered an amp of glucose and he woke up wondering what all of the fuss was about. :-)

Asshat moment? Oh yeah, but it taught me to never again trust my machines over my instincts and nothing like that has ever happened again. Have I ever made the dreaded 'life ending' mistake? I'm not sure, but I believe that I have. I don't believe that I've ever killed anyone that would have ultimately lived, but I believe that I've made mistakes in judgement that caused people to die sooner than they might have. And I have mixed feelings about that. The people involved need quick, aggressive treatment, which I delivered in the best, most responsible manner that I was able to at that time. But I don't know everything, though I try and know as much as I can, and I can't see everything, though I try and gather every piece of information that I can before deciding on a course of treatment, but in a few cases I believe that I tried my best, yet failed. It's going to happen to most, if not all providers I believe. At least those with the balls to try and make a difference.

At 23 you're looking at your career choices from the point of view of self fulfillment, and I think that that's ok, 'specially seeing as how you were smart enough to get your education out of the way early. Most medics I know wish that they had made different career choices, mainly wishing they had chose something that allowed them to be better paid. So this may be something to consider...

Good questions. I'm glad to see you here, and to see you posting!

Dwayne

Edited as the City editor put the text in one big block....again. No contextual changes made.

Edited November 3, 2010 by DwayneEMTP

[uglyEMT]

Welcome to the City! You've come to a good place to learn and ask questions.

Congrats on the Phsyc degree and state cert!

As far as fear or low confidence being an EMT. I think every single one of us has been that way when we first started. I know I was. I mean truely sweating through my uniform nervous. As time goes on your confidence builds. You will have A HA moments that make stepping stones to better confidence. Sometimes they are subtile ones but one day you look around at yourself and realize it happened.

Faking made a great point. if you can try a vollunteer service in the begining to get your feet wet and build some of that confidence up. Sink or swim tacts work on a few people but most will learn how to "deal" with it and it makes them less of a provider. You hear about folks "fudging" vitals on PCRs, missing certain things because the ED is 2 minutes away, ect ect. That is not the provider you want to be.

As far as being shy. No worries. I am sure your not shy around friends and family am I correct? It will get to be the same way with your partners. You become friends and family. You get a repore going and everything flows. I know with my partner we dont need much verbal communication to get things done. We flow, we act as one person sometimes which is scary but effective. Again it comes with time.

I had a partner that never said a word. Shy little thing, if she said two words a shift I was amazed. Yet when it came to patient care, this women was exceptional. Had so much knowledge that she spotted things I over looked and did what had to be done. It made me a better provider because of it. She pushed me without a word and I am thankful for it.

Getting to being afraid of not being perfect. This is going to sound harsh but bear with me please. YOUR HUMAN, NO HUMAN IS PERFECT. Things happen. We may miss things because they get masked by other things, we have bad days. Do we save them all, HECK NO. What you need to learn is just because an outcome didnt go well take what you can from it a learn from it. It takes a real great provider to admit mistakes, own them, and move on. When you can do that the knowledge gleemed will be invaulable. Takes a strong person to OWN their mistakes. Dont be afraid of them. Learn from them. have I made some, yes, do I wish I didnt? Of course. But what I did do was sit down, owned them, reviewed what could have been done, and educated myself to hopefully not do them again. Just as Dwayne said with his example, he learned to trust his instincts and not machines, this made him a better provider which benifits us all.

Again welcome to the City and hopefully we help you in your choices.

[Rinny]

Thanks for the replies! I just got my EMT cert in the mail from homeland security this weekend, but I'm still taking classes for my psych degree (don't have it yet). I do seem like a completely different person after I get to know someone, I was just thinking about at first with people and being around new patients all the time I'd probably feel more uncomfortable than the average person. I know this just needs practice. I also know I'll probably mess up a lot, but I feel like I can be a bit of a perfectionist sometimes haha. When I was with a paramedic transporting patients he was trying to help me get used to taking vitals while moving and i was having a lot of trouble with all the bumps from the road and I felt really embarrassed. I guess I won't really know until I get out there and again, just need to practice. The volunteer thing sounds like a great idea though. I also had been worried wondering if I might just be put with people who don't care about helping me learn and instead are harsh, which will get to me. So maybe the volunteering could help. I am by no means doing this for the money!! I'm doing it because I for some reason loved the course when I hadn't even taken it to work as one. I actually have had an EMT say to me "why in the world would you want to get into this?" and was talking about how stressful it is. I just love the medical aspect of things though (which was why I originally was thinking about being a PA) and I'm a blood and guts kind of person :] I find it fascinating and nothing bothers me or makes me squeamish. I guess basically I'm more of a "books smarts" kind of person so I'm stressing about actually doing it now :\

[tskstorm]

Good luck with your psych classes.

Welcome to the city.