another day

so i had my second shift with pittsburgh EMS last night. ran a total of 4 calls spread out enough that we didnt get to doze off at all.

my preceptor is great. he is a 30 year veteran that is very zen like on calls. the other really nice thing is that he really wants me to work and not take shortcuts. which means i will be learning a ton just riding.

when they respond to calls, they respond calmly. no running out of the station. in fact, lower priority calls often result in 5 minutes before we have even gotten in the ambulance. i guess it makes sense in a system where there is no concern abobut turning around due to the presence of 14 ALS units.

we ran 4 calls last night, 2 BLS and 2 ALS. so that was cool.

now i'm just trying to readjust myself to the day schedule so i can get stay awake during my 12 hours of class on Monday.

i spent 12 hours on thursday in UPMC Presby's ER. Its one of the 3 Level 1 trauma centers in Pittsburgh (not counting the Level 1 children's trauma center at the Children's Hospital.) The nurses are greats as were the attending docs. The residents varied. Interacting with patietns was fine for me though its weird doing assessments in the hospital environment. I guess the real fun will come when i can start giving meds and starting ivs.

but the fun during the shfit was popping over to the trauma bays when the traumas come in. there are 3 trauma bays at presby and they get some use. its like being there for an episode of Trauma: Life in the ER. the Level 1 trauma are the serious ones - i saw one where a guy was run over by a train, a guy was run over by a car, motorcycle crash victim, and a car crash victim. unfortunately for me, the level 1's draw a lot of people. some of them necessary like the surgeons, respiratory and the attending and resident docs. but there are also a lot of superflous residents and students (like me) so i jsut did a whole lot of watching on those.

the exciting ones were the level 2 trauma's. the biggest difference i observed in this characterization is that they were not needed to be rush into surgery nor was there possibility of airway complications - so no need to intubate. so all you would get for these traumas was the ER resident on truama rotation, the trauma nurses and me. so i got to do a lot of hands on stuff.

i gotta say, this is making me want to become a doctor. Dr. Dante. scary. and i'm saying this while not at home which is very good since i am free of the indian influence.

what do you think?