Nervous...

I have my first clinical this Saturday, and I am very nervous. Will be at Williamsburg Sentara ER (unfortunately I am familiar with the locale),. I will be there from 3 PM til 11 PM. I know an ER Tech who works there and my suspicion was confirmed that Saturday night should be full of interesting patients.

My nervousness stems from last night's class. I was lucky enough to get a class taught by the man who runs the school, Nick Klimenko, who has been in EMS since the early 1970's (it wasn't called EMS back then). He told us many great stories (send me an email if you actually want details). But also told us some embarrassing stories of trainees making fools of themselves in the ambulance or the ER. Now I just keep thinking, please please let me not give him a new story to regale the next EMT class with. So, here are the things I would like to avoid:
1) Passing out.
2) Vomiting.
3) Creating a BSI (body substance isolation) incident, i.e. getting a patient's fluid mixed with my fluid.

Ways to avoid any of these situations:
1) Remember to breath.
2) Remember to breath.
3) Keep gloves ON, and mouth closed.

Best line from last night (that is suitable for everyone to read):
Nick on determining the severity of a trauma injury, "Blunt trauma is all about velocity. How fast was the person traveling before they stopped? Now, penetrating trauma, that's just like real estate.... It's all about location location location."

There is a small part of me that really just wants to go to paramedic school and not nursing school. However, the hours are worse, the pay is worse, and your co-workers are even crazier than ER nurses.