It’s the week before the final exam and my EMT class is feeling the pressure. The two-hundred question final looms large on the horizon and, in less than a week, the students will need to perform five randomly selected skills stations perfectly. This is the task that has most of the students really feeling the heat.
So we do what we do every class. We practice and practice and practice. So
there we were, gathered around in groups, practicing our National Registry skills sheets. That’s when Joey asked me the question that absolutely floored me. It floored me and annoyed me, but really didn’t surprise me. I’ve heard the question asked before in many different ways.
Joey finished up his medical scenario and I was giving him some feedback on his performance. He looked down at the fictional patient’s medication list that I had provided him and he shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t really have to know what all these mean right?”
I told him I didn’t understand. He mulled the thought over in his head and took another stab at it. “I mean…we need to write these down and report them to the doctor, but it isn’t important for us to know what they all do. (Pause.) As EMT’s. (Pause.) Right?”
Read This Entire Literary Masterpiece…
I’m blessed with two kids. They are amazing. My kids changed my whole perspective on the world. They re-framed my purpose. It’s wonderful, the way a few minutes with your kids can put an entire bad day in perspective. They also force you to evaluate some of your own behaviors. (If you’re lucky.)
Here are a few of the more valuable lessons I’ve learned from my kids.
1.) Test Your Limits.
Kids know this instinctively. The moment you create a boundary they begin testing it. There is no running in this area. How fast is running? Can we just walk really fast? What about jogging? It’s like they just instinctively know that life is more fun when you’re testing the limits.
Sure there are boundaries that we all have to live within but when was the last time you gave them a little test or maybe tried to actively redefine them? “OK, are you saying that I can’t attend this training or that you’re not willing to pay for me to attend this training? So are you saying we can’t use the conference room for an EMS journal club or we can’t use it during business hours?”
Read This Entire Literary Masterpiece…
We all have our good calls and our bad calls. Don’t we? Sometimes things just flow. Sometimes the patient, the bystanders, the crew members, everyone just clicks. And it’s beautiful. It’s like that perfect drive off the tee box that keeps you coming back for another round. The three point jumper that makes you wonder if you should have tried to play college ball.
Unfortunately (perhaps) it is the rare scene that runs flawlessly. More often than not we look back on our calls and think about the things we could have, and should have done better. Of course, that’s how it should be. Without those moments we don’t grow or become better. Some EMT’s carry the philosophy that we should emerge from our field instruction with flawless medicine. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Here is my list of five common trauma scene mistakes I have encountered frequently in my career. I am guilty of doing all of these, some with painful frequency. In those moments of personal scene review, I rank these as my top five, “I wish we had done that differently.” items.
#1 Failing to manage the scene.
We learn a lot about patient care in school. Unfortunately our education regarding management of the scene may be limited to being taught to blindly recite the words, “Scene safe, BSI” as we enter our skills stations. Scene management can be hard. Especially management of big scenes with multiple priorities like calling for more resources, assessing hazards, protecting bystanders, interacting with family and friends of the injured and triaging multiple patients.
On these scenes, patient care suddenly becomes a warm comforting blanket. Caring for one patient seems so much more manageable. Patient care priorities like holding c-spine and doing an assessment call to us like a sirens song. Don’t do it! It seems obvious but, when it’s your job to manage the scene, manage the scene.
Read This Entire Literary Masterpiece…
