After having logged 56 hours working first aid at Summerfest (over its 11 days, I worked seven of them, one a double shift) in addition to putting hours in at the office, it’s going to be weird going back to a more normal routine. The adrenaline high that can come on busy nights like last Friday contributes to a post-Jessup-like withdrawal, which makes me thankful to have today and tomorrow off from work so I’ve got some time to decompress and regroup (and take some time to write about it, I guess).
Eight shifts in such a short span of time might be nuts, but it was entirely worth it. Training is one thing, but experience is another matter entirely. Every shift was a chance to reinforce and practice what I learned during training and to build on the experiences of the previous shift. If I let too much time lapse, it’s likely that nothing would stick. And there was a lot yet to pick up–simply getting familiar with what supplies are available and where they are, both at the stations and in the run bags, takes time; not to mention the matter of what do you actually do when you are called on to help someone. While a lot of it just involved mundane tasks like dispensing band-aids and ice packs, I handled some less-mundane traumas and medical incidents that let me actually put my skills to use in real life situations as opposed to the safety of the classroom. Even in situations where the EMTs or paramedics were in charge and our only job was to provide assistance if needed, I learned a lot just watching what was going on. And every incident was a lesson in patient care and interaction, no matter how brief or trivial.
Even the idle times were still valuable. I had the opportunity to work with and learn from people who really know what they’re doing and who also had genuine interest in helping me learn and grow. Yeah, a lot of the downtime was spent chatting (when not talking through responses to hypothetical scenarios or stealing moments here and there to go listen to nearby bands), but I got a lot out of simply getting to know everyone on the team. And, if nothing else, I’m more solid on taking blood pressures now.
After 56 hours on the job, I’m confident that I can take the lead now. Even though there are skills I didn’t get to practice, the hesitation and nervousness that comes from inexperience is gone. And I’m increasingly sure that this is the type of work I want to do.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
1. I can be pretty sensitive to sound and perceived sound, especially my own heartbeat, so my first attempts at taking a blood pressure weren’t helped by being in a noisy environment or by having the sphygmomanometer tubes bumping all up against the stethoscope.
2. I need to retrain myself to pay more attention to my senses. Engineers need to make accurate, precise measurements that are repeatable, which we do using various tools (multimeters, oscilloscopes, network analyzers, software debuggers). Nowhere do the five senses factor in as collectors of primary data. On the other hand, medical workers, first responders especially, have to rely on their senses to assess a situation.
3. I’ve become too…left-brained. Back in undergrad, I kept my engineer-side balanced with a healthy dose of acting (some of my fonder memories are of late nights/early mornings during tech week). And after hanging out last week with a couple of high school friends who are also drama babies, I started to miss it. Not to mention, some of those skills would help ease this career transition I’m slowly working through.
(15/365)
Completing my first in a series of FAST training workshops yesterday, this one on trauma emergencies, it seems to me that this is not unlike what med school will be like: there’s a lot of information being launched furiously at you in a short amount of time and you’re expected to pick it up just as fast, but none of it will actually start to make sense or be internalized until you actually start on the job. It’s certainly not unique to medicine, but the experience is something I haven’t needed to go through in well over six years.
What I suspect isn’t quite like med school is the diversity of backgrounds of everyone who’s volunteering. There are medical professionals, sure, but there are quite a few self-proclaimed non-medical professionals–IT professionals/computer geeks–participating as well. Given my own motivations, it’s unsurprising. From my conversations with them so far, the running theme is that they aren’t completely fulfilled or otherwise satisfied by their jobs, usually because of the sedentary aspect of the job and because there’s little sense of having made a difference. And so it is that they came to volunteer for the Red Cross.
Beyond the full-time job holders are the students, some pre-meds, some of whom are switching into medicine after having studied something completely unrelated in their undergrad careers. I met two fine arts post-baccs who are slogging through pre-med classes, and of course I had to ask if they had already hit organic chemistry (isn’t that the bane of every pre-med’s existence?), but they couldn’t relate to that particular misery yet. We talked shop more than anything else–classes, MCATs, applying to med schools–but I would have liked to have found out more about why they’re changing course in life. It’s always interesting to me to hear the reasons why people decide to pursue a career in medicine; plus, it gives me a chance to continue hashing out for myself my own reasons for what I’m doing.
All in all, it was a good session, learning a lot and interacting with a variety of people. There were definitely some insecurities to work through, though. It’ll fade as I get into the swing of things, no doubt; I just wish I didn’t have to wait until the next workshop in April.