I was worried I would be nervous, shy, nauseous, or completely panicked - but I think I was helpful. I shadowed two nurses during my 8 hours. The first handed me off to the second and called me "great".
It's hard feeling helpless in the ER. As an EMT-Basic I am allowed to use the following skills: CPR, AED, administer O2, administer a few medications that aren't very exciting, and none by any large needles. So it is hard to feel useful in an ER where you want to administer meds, or help with the EKG, or learn how to read cardiac rhythms. I mostly helped my nurse take blood, took temperatures, breath sounds, and blood pressures, used the wicked-cool pneumatic tube system, and learned how to read a patient's chart.
I am still amazed that I was able to bag* an intubated patient with COPD**. It felt completely different from bagging a dummy: there was actual pressure in the patient's lungs against which I needed to push the O2. Breathing for someone else, getting the chance to help someone with the most basic of needs, well, that experience has stuck in my chest: my heart feels physically larger, my own breathing feels fuller. I was such a newbie because I thanked all the nurses and doctors over and over again who offered me the opportunity to assist.
It is harder to write about my real-world health care experiences than about the very contrived classroom learning. Real life humans who are experiencing pain - well, so far I have a harder time putting it in words.
I promise I won't turn this blog into an medical terminology essay. I just need to learn how to tell you the entertaining parts.
* To Bag: To squish the plastic bag of O2 (just like you have seen on ER), effectively breathing for the person.
** COPD is a combination of chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Typically caused by a life-time of smoking. These are the people you see carrying personal O2 tanks with nasal candulas. This is as good a reason as any to quit or not smoke. The poor patient was still a bit conscious when they were nasally intubated, and I felt sad as it looked incredibly uncomfortable. The patient had 8 children who all showed-up in ER within an hour, and were very distressed.
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2 comments:
Word, nerd ... I write for a website that deals with COPD-related illness. Wild.
And congrats on your first successful bagging!
Good for you for writting about COPD. I know it is a big topic in the EMS world as patients have a low tolerance for high concentration O2 when they have COPD, and you end up ventilating them sooner than someone else. One bummer about the patient I bagged was that she had a DNI that no one knew about until afterward - makes me feel a little guilty and sad.
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