Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Welcome, and a little bit about me...

Hi! Welcome to my blog. I know there isn't a whole lot here yet, but hopefully over time this will change! This will be where I post stories, news, and other bits that I find interesting and hopefully you will too.

I am a Paramedic, and have been since 2004. I have been working in Emergency Services of one type or another for 10 years as of this summer (what a scary thought!). I started out taking an EMT-Basic class my senior year of high school through a program set up through the county board of education. Originally, I took the class because I knew that I wanted to be a Park Ranger/Naturalist, and having my EMT certification would help me to find a job. To those who know me, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that that fell by the wayside. I fell in love with the job, and the people that do this work, and decided that working in EMS was actually my calling. I finished my Basic class, took the National Registry exam, and then promptly went on vacation with my dad. We went to Texas, and I spent a good portion of the two weeks there doing ride time with my Uncle, who is one of the dinosaurs of this field. He has been working a squad and teaching since the 70's if I recall correctly. Since I was a nice eager beaver in school, I had already done significantly more ride time than what was required, having a blast the entire time. I got a feel for how things were done to provide prehospital care. All of my ride time was done with a private EMS company that had the contract with a number of townships and cities in the county that I lived in. There was no city/township/fire department based ambulances, all emergency and non-emergency transports were done by private services contracted with the various municipalities. When I was doing my ride time in Texas for a County Based government service, I was definitely in for an eye opener. Helicopter based transport was used much more than it was in my area due to the long transport times to Level 1 trauma care, as well as definitive care for any serious medical emergency. Call volume was significantly lower, and there was no non-emergent trips. I had a blast, and learned several new tricks (including how to attempt to explode pig lungs during advanced airway training) as well as got to experience a different system's operation.

After my brief vacation, I returned to the Snowy North in July, and promptly found myself a job working for "The Competition" from the service that I did my Basic ride time with. I started out, and worked for many month's driving the wheelchair van. Not much glory in that job, but I am a firm believer that it helped me to develop my patient interview skills and increase my comfort in dealing with a wide variety of people. Driving the wheely-van also showed me how little I knew about the streets in the town I grew up in. I continued to drive the wheelchair van full time throughout my Paramedic school, which I began in 2003. I began to pick up a shift here and there as they came available on the squad, just filling in. This allowed me to develop my skills as a basic, which is absolutely critical, and also presented me with the opportunity to see some of that Advanced Medical Schtuff in action outside of the classroom and clinical sites. After completing paramedic school, I had moved over to a full time spot as one of those Ambulance Drivers on the squad.  I tested and eventually passed National Registry (missed by a few questions the first 2 times) and began the wonderful world of Advanced Prehospital Life Support.

From there, the rest is history..I have worked in a variety of settings, be they Private EMS, Fire Department based EMS service, dialysis center, Amusement Park and a Zoo, even worked building those shiny yellow ambulance stretcher's for a brief time. Since then, I have considered, and decided against, working oversea's in a combat zone, changing over to working as a dialysis technician, and at the urging of everyone within earshot, pursuing a career in karaoke. I now work full time in an inner city Trauma Center as a Paramedic, and am loving it.

Future blogs will have all kind of funny stories, reflections on my experiences, some more about who I are, and where I done been, and maybe even some bits of advice and knowledge that I have picked up along the way. Hope the whole 2 of you that may have read this have enjoyed it, and maybe you will even come back again!

Until next time, it is time to go hide from that Burning Ball of Hydrogen in The Sky...

3 comments:

  1. Hmm first comment, good luck with it LT. I know I'll be reading.

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  2. Thanks Jeff! Hopefully lots more to come!

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  3. I read this! that makes more than 2 i'm sure.

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