Yummy!

Last night I worked my 10 clinical hours as an EMT student in the Emergency Department at UCLA Santa Monica Hospital. It was freakin' awesome. I had a hard time for a bit because I was insecure about my ability, but I'm sure that will go away with experience. My shift mostly involved observing, assisting, and a bit of actual EMT-scope treatment:

I took vitals for a couple of hours with the triage nurse: blood pressure, pulse, temperature.

I bandaged up a guy whose face was torn up--the doctor gave him stitches on the top of his nose. I had to clean up his dried and drying blood and apply bandages while he winced.

One woman sliced off part of her finger with an industrial-grade potato peeler at the restaurant where she worked. It was hard to control the bleeding on that one.

There was an 11-year old unconscious girl who came in via paramedics with her mother after having a seizure. I helped move her and get a gown on her.

I watched another doctor perform an abdominal paracentesis to drain a woman's huge abdomen, swollen with fluid. The National Library of Medicine says that this could have been caused by one of many things, including Infection, Tumor (cancerous or non-cancerous), Appendicitis, Cirrhosis of the liver, Pancreatic disease, Kidney disease, Heart disease, Damaged bowel.

Needless to say, there were some interesting aromas floating around from the unkempt homeless guy whose clothes were saturated with the smell of BO and urine to the constipated patient who needed a special enema. Clean-up in that room was not so pleasant.

I think I'm going to lose half my blog readership if I continue to post messages like this one. What would that be? Down from two people to one?

This is all to say that working in the ER is neat-o. I leveled up from being a volunteer. Emergency Medicine attracts people of a certain disposition: those that are not surprised by much, who can find humor in any situation, and can hold it together when things get harry and be somewhat detached. Oh yeah, and they should be smart.

I think I've got something here. It's a match! Nursing, here I come.

Term of the day: Throckmorton's sign