New blog, new domain name and maybe a new type of blog post….

The end of the degree course is in sight, I have been allowed back onto the road after nearly a year off of the road, and now maybe its time to see the end of my “Angry” posts and time to start being a little more positive…

Positive Thinking

To quote someone on my Facebook Status message “Strange life being a paramedic. We wait around all day for someone to be ill or injured…..The more injured or ill’er they are….. the better the job! Hhmm strange life,” and its true!

I have got to the stage in my Degree which allows me to practice Paramedic Skills under the supervision of a Registered Paramedic or other Health Care Professional.  All Paramedics have been at this stage and have all willed a host of nasty things to happen to the public so that we can practice and then ultimately qualify.

My first patient for nearly a year was unfortunately deceased, unfortunately for him and his family, but also for me….

The rest of that 12 hour shift and the next 12 hour shift passed with very few patients to see and no skills to practice. However during the third shift we were called to a lady in her late 50’s who suffered from Asthma and also a chronic breathing problem, COPD.  A private Ambulance Technician on an RRV was at the scene approximately 2 mins ahead of us and managed to get a basic history before we arrived. He explained that she was tripoding and had a Silent Chest – not good!

My first attempt of a Cannula on a poorly patient, and whilst it was in the vein and did flush we believed that I may have gone through the vein completely at one point, so I quickly got my colleague to put a cannula into the other hand for me.  We gave her 4 different drugs, oxygen and lots of support, but despite our best efforts and quick thinking her conscious levels had reduced massively during the time that it took us to carry her down the stairs and into the Ambulance.  On the way to the hospital we had to positively ventilate the patient and nebulise with further drug therapy which worked well.  Before we left the patients property she was centrally cyanosed and mostly not in a good way, however by the time we got to the Emergency Department she was looking very much pinker and more able to communicate with us.

Unfortunately the nursing staff had not seen the patients previous condition and had already made their mind up when we walked through the door – “Oh…. She isn’t as bad as we were told….” and then during our handover they stopped ventilating the patient and considered reducing the amount of oxygen that she was being given as they only listened to the parts of the handover that suited them – “this patient blah blah blah short of breath blah blah blah COPD blah blah blah….” In the hospital setting they reduce the amount of oxygen given to COPD patients in comparison to the amount that we would give in the acute setting.

Unsurprisingly they did end up taking control of the patients airway – in the form of sedating and intubating her and then oxygenated her to a saturation of 100% despite withholding oxygen when we arrived.

This patient has been through ITU in the past and has recovered well – hopefully she will this time too…

I said that beginning I said that I would be more positive, which I tried to do, but then ended up in a bit of a rant – sorry!

My next post will be a bit of a rant too….

Check back soon.