I am probably going to get into trouble for posting this. I am sure that it will violate some form of HIPAA or something but… I also think I should post about my clinical time. Soooo after much deliberation… I have decided to do the latter.
I plan on combining the two days that I served clinicals into one big post about them. In other words I won’t differentiate between which patients were Ambulance runs and which ones were brought into the ER. Merely stating the patients I dealt with.

Before getting into it, I’m going to explain some things.

On the ambulance, there are three of them and they rotate continually. So it goes 24, 22, 21. After 24 goes on a run, 22 is up, after they go on a run, 21 is up. And so on and so on. Think it’s how most of them work, however… it isn’t how it worked when I did my clinicals on another ambulance service. So that’s why I am specifying.

Hospital
First of all: There are about 25 nurses, 5 doctors, 5 techs and 2 or 3 EMT's on staff there in the ER at all times. The nurses are constantly changing shifts. They work under a schedule of two sets of three 8-hour rotations… For example, one shift will be 07:00-15:00, 15:00-23:00, & 23:00-07:00 while an overlap shift will be 11:00-19:00, 19:00-03:00, & 03:00-11:00 so that this way there are always people there who have dealt with the patients even after the shifts change. It results in there being a continuous chain of information and the patients end up with excellence while the hospital works like a well oiled machine. What also happens is you have nurses continually coming on shift and going off shift. Every 4 hours to be exact.

This doesn't include all of the interns, medics and EMT’s getting their clinical time, and of course people like me to just follow other people around and observe.

Second of all: “the crazy room” is a room specially designed to handle the psychotic patients who might either hurt themselves or their nurses/doctors.
The room has “slide down” doors, somewhat like a garage door, that can be pulled down over the walls to prevent the patient from punching holes in the walls, getting at the medical equipment on the walls, punching through the observation one-way mirror/window etc…
The door INTO the room, has bars on it with a window between the bars and the patient, and a window between the bars and the hallway. But then it also has a board that goes over that window within the door so that people in the hall can not look in. And putting this board, and pulling the doors down over the walls then soundproofs the room so that the patient in the room can scream, shout or sing as loud as they can… and it won’t effect any of the other patients.
I think that for the hospital to have a room like that is not only smart but one of the best ideas I may have ever heard about…

78yr-old male, Short Of Breath (SOB), CronicOPD, Fell twice, hit his head. Has been short of breath ever since.

19yr old black male, altered mental status. Was brought in by the police and was very combative with the police. He had decided that he didn’t like the color of his skin, so he took a gallon of oil based gray paint and dumped it over his head. In struggling with the officers who brought him in he had turned one of the cops uniforms gray. Prior to arriving at the hosp. was biting, kicking, and spitting. Spat all over the back of the police car. After arriving at the hospital and being put into the "crazy" room, and realizing most of his nurses were women he settled right down. However before he settled down, the police chained him to the bed with handcuffs.
By the time he was chained to the bed… the paint he had dumped over his head had permeated every surface it came into contact with (paint in ear canals and outer edges of the ears, eye lids, nose, lips, teeth, hands, feet etc…). Even to the point that it was under his clothes, resulting in them needing to be cut off him. Then we had to scrub him down. Especially in the area's that we had to put the 12-lead "stickers".
Shortly after arriving, and after getting him scrubbed down, he announced "I gotta pee!" SO HE DID!! He didn’t wait for us to bring him a urinal or anything. Just went all over himself and the bed. So since he was handcuffed to the bed, we had to get the cop who was guarding him to un-handcuff him on one arm momentarily. So that we could take his hospital gown off, change the sheets, and put new ones on both by making him roll over onto one side, then the other.
He floated in and out of the "crazy" mood. When he wasn't singing, he was shouting out sermon type things. At first wouldn't tell us his name. Kept on saying it was "pure worship". And when asked who his mother was he said it was Priestess such-and-such. After being held for about 3 hours he finally told them his name.
From what I deduce, after the cop un-handcuffed him, he didn't RE-handcuff him. So that just prior to taking him off to jail he rolled himself out of bed and was laying on the floor with one cop over him with his knee in his back, the other one standing in the corner ready to tazer him. If/when necessary.
He swore that the cops were minions of Satan. And when he had been 'tested' and cleared as being clean (not drunk or high) they carted him off to jail.
Because of his prior opinion of them, and his actions… when the police were ready to take him to jail, they put him into foot locks, handcuffs, and a chain down the back so they could pull the feet right out from under him if they needed to. Also so that he couldn't kick them. And had his arms behind him so that he also couldn't claw anyone either.

Paraplegic w/ Muscular Sclerosis; pain in legs & arm; had to lift her into the bed using a special 'crane' type thing. Was sent home with some medicine.

17:30 an unresponsive male. Poisoning/Overdose. 20 Tylenol PM, 40 Nyquil caps, half bottle whiskey, entire box of rat poison.
We pumped his stomach, intubated and bagged him since he was unable to breath on his own, then put him on a breathing machine. Catheterized him, because he was completely unresponsive. Doc ordered a CT scan and spinal x-ray to rule out any spinal injuries since he was found on the floor.
He was unable to breath on his own when it came time to take him to the CT scan, he had to be bagged the entire time. That was my job.

21:00 Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) with significant intrusion to the driver's side and all the windows were shattered. 5yr old and a 2yr old being the only ones with obvious injuries. 2yr old with 4" laceration to forehead; skull showing. 5yr old with contusions, abrasions and tenderness to the lower quadrants. Bringing grandma and mother in with the children.
When they arrived at the hospital, it turned into chaos (of course). Even though the 2 yr old was almost 3, he did not speak well and was screaming his head off. Firefighters had put him into a papoose to prevent any further injuries along with a “neck sock” to try to protect his cervical spine. After he settled down, and slept a little bit we put him back into a papoose and Doc Miller stitched him up. 72 stitches to that poor little kids forehead. His mother couldn't have been more then 14. The grandma, who had been driving, smelled like booze… and both children had been ejected from the vehicle. However the adults(?) had gotten out of the vehicle, picked up the kids, put them BACK into the car so that when the firemen got there they didn't realize the children had ever left the vehicle.
On the way into the hospital, the little girl (5) told one of the firemen that she had been thrown from the car. When asked if her cousin had too, she replied yes; he was too.
The firemen remember that when inspecting the vehicle for anything out of the ordinary that the car seats were not strapped down correctly. That the 2yr olds booster seat wasn't strapped down at all!

76yr old; diabetic altered mental status.

45yr old; brought in by police, needed sedation due to an altered mental status. Took his clothes away to prevent him from leaving; so he stripped down and proceeded to shake his body all over the place and flip off the cameras and throw the stuff he could throw (pillow and pillow case, mattress cover, sheet and mattress) around the “crazy” room. He was eventually sedated with 2 kinds of IV drugs and then tested to see if he was high or drunk then taken to jail.

60yr old woman w/ chest pain. Had stopped at the fire station on her way home from work. Fire crew brought her in. She was having a true heart attack; pain dissipated with nitroglycerine tablet.

48yr old male. Altered mental status. Due perhaps to partial intoxication? Suspected junky; fried his brain on to much weed. Had visible lacerations and contusions to his face, hands and arm. Required stitches to his fingers and a splint to one. Blood caked around mouth, nose and on the opposing hand. Said he had been in a bar fight, that an SOB had tried to beat him up but that he cut his face open. Could smell the alcohol on him from multiple feet away. Was one of 3 patients I had to take back to their rooms from getting a CT scan, after going the first time with the overdose.
Guy from school who was also serving clinicals took him over to CT. Was glad he did, junky decided after we got over to the CT room that he had to pee NOW. So we had to locate a urinal and Centreville took him into the other room. I was glad he was the one to do it since I wasn't to keen on the thought of taking a junky into a back room to watch him pee. (he was unstable enough that he wasn't trustworthy enough to send him by himself. Both of us agreed that he needed to have one of us with him at all times. He was dead set upon going home ASAP and that he hadn't done anything wrong that "I jist try ta do my part!" and "I think it's time to go home and smoke some more weed man…"

400lb woman in severe back pain. Doc ordered a CT scan. Had to help lift/move her onto the CT table. Only four people there to help move her over. Was kind to me after I took the second patient (junky) into the CT room to get scanned and came out to explain why I hadn't taken her over to her room yet.
 
94yr-old male needing transport due to his nurse removing some of his daily required equipment improperly causing bleeding.

84yr-old female slipped and fell. Dislocated shoulder and laceration to her right orbit and forehead.

25yr-old 8 month pregnant mother of 3 caught shop lifting and was arrested. When she was searched weed and a pipe were found on her person. Gave herself a panic attack during booking and thought she had gone into labor. Needed transport to the hospital. Said that the “pressure” had been going on for 2 days. It was determined by all involved that she was merely having a panic attack.

87yr-old male, had 3 glasses of wine and the waitresses mistook his intoxication to be a mini-stroke.

Well... this post/update is a little later then I planned... as usual... but for documentation purposes; My jump boots came on Saturday. I think it was in the morning, but since the UPS guys didn't need any type of signature... they just left the stuff (there were multiple packages) on the front porch.

AND I was able to save money on them because of... (drum roll please) Josh. It never occurred to me that I might be able to get them through another online store... I had assumed that only the EMS/Fire stores sold them because they are sorta special. Meh. Anyway... yay for Josh.

If you will remember I enrolled in an EMT class through Elkhart General. In this class there is a man by the name of Brian Blanda who is 9 yrs older then me, already a fireman and needing to get his EMT cert. He's struggling in class and currently considering dropping out. I truly do not want him to do such a thing. I think if he dropped out he would regret it. But more then that... I would loose a friend since we would no longer have a reason to talk... sure we would remain friends I suppose but why call someone when you have nothing in common and when both of your schedules are so hectic you cannot even function but to jump from each thing to the next.

Since he is struggling and I'm not, both of us got the same idea. I would help him. A tutoring type of thing if you will... it seemed like a good idea when it was thought of... but perhaps not. I am not sure yet. Mainly because I don't know how much I am actually helping him! I also am unsure how to target specific problematic areas and improve on them. Honestly I need some type of a guide... the entire class does. Half of the class is failing... and even though I don't like to think about this option... it very well could be Jim Kumm's fault since he is the one who is in charge of how the class is taught.

Day before yesterday Brian calls me up and asked if I would be willing and able to come over "tomorrow" (yesterday). I didn't have anything going on except for school so I agreed to come over. We worked for about 3 hours and I knew that I had completely wasted the time I had been given because of the fact that he had asked me to go over the objectives with him. Which are all bull shit anyway. However I was doing as he asked... so thats what we did.

It was time for class so we rode together. I knew that I would get utterly lost if I drove myself. And he knew the way... I didn't think there was any harm in that. The problem lies within the fact that I get through exams faster then he does; and in the fact that we had not devoted enough time to studying. 3 hours was quite a bit when you consider his schedule and so forth. However he was so completely ill prepared for this exam that it was like putting a POW in front of a firing squad and telling him to run around to miss all the bullets while they all shot at him.

And odd analogy to be sure, but it was very much like that. He felt as though he had gone before 20 firing squads and was beyond pissed off by the time he was finished. I myself personally was in complete agreement with him when it was mentioned that this exam was harder then the "ready made" exams that Jim was handing out prior to this one. (You see, we [the class] were not doing well enough on the exams to please him; so he decided to write up his own exam.)

Then to add insult to injury, as we are walking out of the building we notice a crowd of all of those who had failed, and knew they had failed. [... I passed, but only by one point.]  Brian, Jason, Ami, and Traci[?] all knew without a doubt they failed. Ami was crying, Jason was angry... and Traci was over at the "wings & things" place at this point in time. So they get to talking and Brian tells them about calling up Michelle the lead EMT instructor to "complain" to "give her a piece of your mind" to coin the phrase.

On the one hand they are right. We should complain to those who are in charge. But ultimately I wonder just how much they can/will do about it.

What we need is a good, solid study guide, broken down into the day by day format so we know EXACTLY what we have to study per day. Which on the one hand we do have a sort of study guide in the syllabus. But truly... how helpful is that? (not very) It is only helpful to those who do not have a lot of things going on else where in their lives. Like me.

Brian... is most definitely not in that category. I honestly do not think I have ever met a man who is more busy then he is. He is constantly on the move. Even when he is lounged out on the couch watching a TV show on his big screen TV he is still doing things like paying bills, organizing paperwork for the next day etc...

So pretty much... I'm screwed as a tutor. Because what help is a tutor who does not know how to help/teach? Not very much help thats how much.

I'm frustrated at the moment with all of the events which are kind of compiling into a nice, round snow ball type thing. And I have a feeling that when this "snow ball" really begins to roll... it is going to make a great big mess of everything both in its path and some of the people around it when it "explodes".