almost internship time

We turned in our choices for internship the other night in class.  Our instructors match us for internship based on GPA, with the top person getting their first pick and then down the line.  With 15 people and 7 locations nearly everybody is getting their first pick. 

I put in for the 2 closest spots so I can still sleep in my own bed every night (plus, it's nice knowing the town).  During my ride-alongs I hated not knowing where I was in relation to the hospital since it affects the load n go vs stay and play decision.  Also, being stationed in a rig that moves around stinks if you're in the back -- you never know where you are, where you're going, and you aren't part of the conversations that go on between partners.

Lately everyone in class has been in clinicals at the hospital all the time so the stories we share with each other have been great.

I wish I'd recorded more of what happened in class and on clinicals, especially after listening to Ron Davis and Kelly Grayson over at emsnewbie.com and their weekly podcast.

new drawings from class

Writing about class has been hard, but I can still draw (well, not really, my drawings are terrible, but they help me learn).

Class is going great (we're done with the first of 3 didactic quarters), I had my first ambulance ride time, did my OR rotation (intubations) and ended the quarter top in class.

The second quarter is supposed to be quite a bit harder. I learn/think best when my hands are involved drawing things and, well, anyone reading this has to suffer my horrible artwork (Brushes for iPad rocks! )

brick walls

The brick walls are there for a reason. They're not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. 

Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture. 2008

I don't tear up or cry very often, but Randy Pausch's story is one of those times.  One of the best lessons from him is about how "stuff" isn't as important as people. 

Once, about a dozen years ago, when Chris was seven years old and Laura was nine, I picked them up in my brand-new Volkswagen Cabrio convertible. "Be careful in Uncle Randy's new car," my sister told them. "Wipe your feet before you get in it. Don't mess anything up. Don't get it dirty."

I listened to her, and thought, as only a bachelor uncle can: "That's just the sort of admonition that sets kids up for failure. Of course they'd eventually get my car dirty. Kids can't help it." So I made things easy. While my sister was outlining the rules, I slowly and deliberately opened a can of soda, turned it over, and poured it on the cloth seats in the back of the convertible. My message: People are more important than things. A car, even a pristine gem like my new convertible, was just a thing.

As I poured out that Coke, I watched Chris and Laura, mouths open, eyes widening. Here was crazy Uncle Randy completely rejecting adult rules.

I ended up being so glad I'd spilled that soda. Because later in the weekend, little Chris got the flu and threw up all over the backseat. He didn't feel guilty. He was relieved; he had already watched me christen the car. He knew it would be OK. 

a couple inspirational quotes

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity -- Louis Pasteur



Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt. — Special Olympics Oath

What we learn with pleasure we never forget.  -- Alfred Mercier

a million articles on your ipod touch

So, I'm late to the blogging (and reading others blogs) game with EMS.  I've been in the bicycling blogging community in my fair city, and before that myspace (eww, we could just forget about that).  I spend a lot of time reading the back posts.

I've been trying to catch up, because I truly love all of the medical knowledge contained in the stories of the bloggers I follow.  I love reading Peter Canning's stories about naloxone, adenosine, epi and other drugs.  When I'm in class and my instructor starts to talk about it -- I've got a leg up.  I think about the patient in his story "That Narcan Shit" and have a vivid reminder of the effects and side effects, and why it should be titrated to bring the breathing up (so they live) but not to slam it in full dose.

So there's this great app/website called Instapaper.  It's really genious.  You add a little bookmark to your list of bookmarks.  Then, whenever you get to a really awesome article/blogpost but think "darn, I don't have time to read this right now" you can click your special "Read Later" bookmark.

Through some crazy magical techie wizardry, the Instapaper machine turns that article/post into a nicely formatted, advertisements removed, newspaper-style article for you to read later.  All of these articles get queued up on your iPhone/iPod Touch, or (as of next week), the iPad, or your Kindle, or you can go login on the Instapaper site and see a list of all the article's you've saved.

I guess in the Pro version (which I'm buying next week, since it's got new features etc for the iPad which is already ordered) you can share articles with other people, and it has this really cool looking tilt to scroll.  You just lean your device forward to scroll down the page, or lean it back to scroll back up.  I usually do a ton of article reading on my Blackberry and on my old one I think I wore out the spacebar and trackball from reading so much.

Now, instead of grabbing my blackberry and hoping to find something good to read when I've got time to kill, I can grab my iPod and KNOW that I'll have tons of great articles to read.

great timing

excellent post full of videos over at Life Under the Lights.  It's great timing for me (we started on airway tonight).  One of the videos is embedded below, take a look at Ckemtp's blog for the rest

http://lifeunderthelights.com/2010/03/videos-for-an-airway-management-lecture/

drug testing at paramedic school

Now that the Anatomy and Physiology test  is behind us our paramedic class moved on to the beginnings of pharmacology.  Our teacher grabbed a drug box and let us try the different drugs on each other - then separated us into groups based on the outcome.  All the paralyzed people stayed put, everyone on B1 agonists got to run outside, all the people on Beta Blockers laid down to rest, the one dude on opioids sat there tripping, etc etc.  It was a really good way to learn what the drugs did as well as how to reverse the effects (naloxone is COOL!)

It's too bad the cops came to break up the party before it was my turn :(  I'm sure our new teacher won't be as fun

In other news, the book to the left (Dr. Jeffrey Guy's Pharmacology for Prehospital Professional) is great.  I bought it a few months ago to study from and took it along to study group the other night.  We sat around doing all the drug calcs from the book so we'd have a leg up on class.  It made the drug calc worksheet our teacher gave us really easy :)