Papers are eating my brain.
In other news...patient with moderately severe eye injury, to be taken to eye center at Big Fancy Hospital. Patient is in a lot of pain. Hospital says "Vitals are stable. Go ahead and drive the 1-1.5 hours up here." (This is the first WTF, as it pulls a medic unit out of the area for a minimum of 4 hours).
Medic says "Uh, ok. Oh, patient is in a lot of pain. Request permission to give 2mg morphine."
Patient is about 85-90kg. Granted, patient did admit to 'a few drinks' but still....2 mg morphine? For an EYE INJURY???? For a 1.5 hour DRIVE??????
You might as well spray that morphine in the air for all the good it's going to do the patient.
OYE! And I can't say or do a damned thing, as I have my NREMT-I, but cannot get licensed in this state because I am not a member of a dept that has ALS volunteers (a rant for another day).
I was reminded of Rogue Medic's take on pain management in the prehospital (and sometimes hospital) setting (well, one of his takes, at least).
Monday, September 20, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Right then....
First of all, a huge CONGRATS!!!! to Epi on passing her NREMT-P and becoming a full-fledged medic! So proud of you, girl, and I hope to be able to write the same thing next June.
School is back in session. Classes started this past week, though things don't really get rolling for another week or so. This year is all about clinicals and paper writing. All my my actual classes are management-type classes, and thus the paper writing. One class, Senior Seminar, meets 3 times this semester, and is all about case presentations.
This year's exciting clinical roster includes the cardiac cath lab, 2 different ER rotations, peds ER rotation, a turn with Big-Name-Hospital's critical care transport team (either in-house transports or inter-facility, we have yet to find out), a rotation in the OR with anesthesia for intubations, L&D (something that NO ONE is looking forward to), ICU, and perhaps a psych rotation. All this and ambulance too! We are scheduled to do 3 clinicals/wk, which means that we do one 8 or 12 hour clinical on Mon, Wed, and Fri. This is much better than last semester when I struggled to cram in all my clinical time on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. And it's a good thing we have our weekends free this semester, cause those papers are going to be a PITA. Luckily, The Man is back in town for the foreseeable future, so I don't have to stress about the dogs. Plus, it's really really nice to actually have him around. We will finally be able to spend a consecutive year together for the first time in 3 years! Clinicals don't actually start till 9/13, so I have next Friday clear as well. Wednesday is ACLS class (we did most of ACLS last semester, so it's really just a refresher).
My volunteer station has been something else. I've gotten maybe 3 or 4 calls over the summer, because while I didn't do much this summer, every day seemed to be busy. When I was at the station, I was The White Cloud. Not just A white cloud...THE WHITE CLOUD. The last few times I've slept in, we haven't turned a wheel. Once I slept in and the medics ran all night, but the BLS truck didn't turn a wheel. I'm helping with training, and found out this week that our training officer was in the hospital with chest pain, and in testing they found multiple masses on her liver. Obviously, this is putting a crimp in training. Next week is no training due to the business meeting, but I'm hoping she's ok and ready to go week after next, cause I don't have the time to take over.
Triathlon training is also going. The last 2 days have been a wash, thanks to some lingering knee pain and a migraine. No clear weight loss, but I suspect that has to do with my poor eating habits (mostly clean eating, but either too much or not enough). I can definitely tell a difference in my bike riding though. Endurance, both muscular and cardiac, is slowly getting better, which is the primary goal of this month's program.
I'd post more interesting stories and tales of the glorified cab, but nothing's been going on. Hopefully once clinicals start, I'll have some good stuff to write about. For now, it's about finishing laundry and heading to the station for a good heavy bag workout and some duty before dinner with friends this evening.
School is back in session. Classes started this past week, though things don't really get rolling for another week or so. This year is all about clinicals and paper writing. All my my actual classes are management-type classes, and thus the paper writing. One class, Senior Seminar, meets 3 times this semester, and is all about case presentations.
This year's exciting clinical roster includes the cardiac cath lab, 2 different ER rotations, peds ER rotation, a turn with Big-Name-Hospital's critical care transport team (either in-house transports or inter-facility, we have yet to find out), a rotation in the OR with anesthesia for intubations, L&D (something that NO ONE is looking forward to), ICU, and perhaps a psych rotation. All this and ambulance too! We are scheduled to do 3 clinicals/wk, which means that we do one 8 or 12 hour clinical on Mon, Wed, and Fri. This is much better than last semester when I struggled to cram in all my clinical time on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. And it's a good thing we have our weekends free this semester, cause those papers are going to be a PITA. Luckily, The Man is back in town for the foreseeable future, so I don't have to stress about the dogs. Plus, it's really really nice to actually have him around. We will finally be able to spend a consecutive year together for the first time in 3 years! Clinicals don't actually start till 9/13, so I have next Friday clear as well. Wednesday is ACLS class (we did most of ACLS last semester, so it's really just a refresher).
My volunteer station has been something else. I've gotten maybe 3 or 4 calls over the summer, because while I didn't do much this summer, every day seemed to be busy. When I was at the station, I was The White Cloud. Not just A white cloud...THE WHITE CLOUD. The last few times I've slept in, we haven't turned a wheel. Once I slept in and the medics ran all night, but the BLS truck didn't turn a wheel. I'm helping with training, and found out this week that our training officer was in the hospital with chest pain, and in testing they found multiple masses on her liver. Obviously, this is putting a crimp in training. Next week is no training due to the business meeting, but I'm hoping she's ok and ready to go week after next, cause I don't have the time to take over.
Triathlon training is also going. The last 2 days have been a wash, thanks to some lingering knee pain and a migraine. No clear weight loss, but I suspect that has to do with my poor eating habits (mostly clean eating, but either too much or not enough). I can definitely tell a difference in my bike riding though. Endurance, both muscular and cardiac, is slowly getting better, which is the primary goal of this month's program.
I'd post more interesting stories and tales of the glorified cab, but nothing's been going on. Hopefully once clinicals start, I'll have some good stuff to write about. For now, it's about finishing laundry and heading to the station for a good heavy bag workout and some duty before dinner with friends this evening.
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