The Year's End

There is at last a bright light at the end of the tunnel. I am so happy that the school phase of my education is over; I am ready to move on the the practical phase. I have just 30 shifts of 12 hours standing between me and the national registry. Lucky for me, I have four months to complete those 30 shifts, so it wont be quite as miserable as the last year and a half.

It's been a pretty big year, going through paramedic school, studying all the time, working full time. I am a little sad to see it go. Now that things have slowed down so much with the semester ending, I find myself actually not busy sometimes. It has been a long time since I have felt like that. Perhaps this spring some fishing will actually get done.

I think I have all the information I need to move on to the next phase of my program. I am nervous; I am going to big and bad ass system for my field internship. I am sure they will bust my chops, but I want to put on a good show. I am representing not only my department, but my program as well. Our program director never hesitates to tell us that we are representing our school out there so we need to look good.

I will try to post as often as I can throughout, but it will be hard. I am working straight 12 hour shifts; that leaves little time for me to get anything done other than eating and sleeping. Wish me well and stay tuned...

The Home Stretch... Finally

Alas, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I am sitting here at work, it is late, and I am reading about the joys of incontinence in the geriatric patient. I am nearing the home stretch and cannot wait to be done with school.

I have about 12 days left of class. After a short break filled with a bunch of ER and Labor/Delivery clinicals I will begin precepting as a paramedic student on an ambulance. Once that starts I will only be 360 hours and one big ass test away from my shiny NREMT-P badge.

I have to apologize for not posting much lately. Though I am skeptical that I have too many readers (aside from my pal Carmelo), I do feel like I need to keep plugging along with this thing. I have been deep in the books and the clinicals lately. We have also all had to get NRP (neonatal resuscitation), ACLS (advanced cardiac life support), and PALS (pediatric advanced life support) aside from the usual studies. I have been busy, and tired, but things are finally starting to make sense.

It happened suddenly. I was practicing assessments with a bunch of nurses and doctors during out PALS class when all of the sudden I was able to "visualize" a clear clinical picture of my patient. I don't know how else to explain it. It was like suddenly the 2000 pages of my text book, all the reading, videos, practice, everything came together and I understood how it all worked together. It was an awesome feeling. For the first time I had a solid and confident feeling that I was going to be good at this.

That feels good, really good.