Assuming Room Temperature

I am now well into my intensive one month certification, on the way to becoming an EMT. Yes, the class is 7 hours every day, and you're supposed to remember a million little sequences of interventions that you would perform depending on what the patient's chief complaint is. Fair enough, we are dealing with saving lives here, so some details are permissible. What I always knew, but never had any detailed personal knowledge of, is that in addition to this (or perhaps in spite of, or even thanks to) the sometimes serious and grim nature of the job, EMTs have developed their own twisted sense of reality and humor. And that's what I'll be talking about today.

EMTs are all action-loving adrenaline junkies, to some extent, so the first thing I encountered in our paramedic instructor was an inherent love for gory and graphic video clips. We'll either start the class off with one of these, or end it with one, and they all fall in 3 categories: funny, car accident related, or they're clips from Family Guy. To show you exactly what I mean, these are samples of what we watch in class every day:

Family Guy Clip
Fatal Car Chase, Guy Thrown Out
Tequila Commercial
5 stages of Grief

Another category, that we really haven't seen that many clips of, has been the gory kind.. the kind of thing where there's blood or brain matter everywhere, as in whenever someone films a car accident scene or suicide, or just some trauma case where paramedics and EMTs are working on someone critically injured. I love the latter kind, but the suicides and other gore from real life I can do without. (For a special treat to those who love that stuff, here is a clip of a guy who is brought in to the police station after shooting a cop - who was never searched properly - and who then shoots himself right there. WARNING: Graphic!).

EMTs must learn and use a bunch of acronyms to remember the stuff to do to a patient in different situations, since the assessment needs to be thorough and complete, and in the right order. An example is the SAMPLE history, which is a list of questions to ask a patient or relevant family members about the medical history.

S - Signs and Symptoms.
A - Allergies.
M - Medications.
P - Pertinent Past History.
L - Last Oral Intake
E - Events leading up to illness/injury.

As you can see, this can be a great tool for figuring out what is wrong with the patient, what's causing this, and what might be done by the EMT to help the patient. A different area where an EMT utilizes a lot of acronyms, though, even though it's a no-no, is in the description of the patient to each other or in their reports. A typical example is the trauma patient description FDGB, which means "Fall Down, Go Boom." Some larger patients might have BWS (Beached Whale Syndrome), and the homeless might be referred to as "urban outdoorsmen." A terminal patient might be FTD (Fixin' To Die) or CTD (Circling The Drain), and a dead patient might be ART (Assuming Room Temperature) or CC (Cancel Christmas). Gunshot wounds to the head are sometimes referred to as either 'trans-occipital implants', or simply 'acute lead poisoning' in other cases. Most people are familiar with FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition) patients, in which case it might be necessary to PUHA (Pick Up, Haul Ass). An IBM (Incredible Barfing Man) should probably GOMA (Get Outta My Ambulance), as he might be PD (Pretty Drunk) and a PITA (Pain In The Ass). Either way, it's always important to for EMT to CYA (Cover Your Ass).

As I have 1 online exam, 2 quizzes and 6 chapters of problems to do before tomorrow, I should probably end it there.. but hey, this is an interesting tidbit to all Europeans: Did you know that medical professionals here (from EMTs to doctors) do NOT have to stop and help at the scene of an accident or illness unless they are actually on shift? Pretty crazy to me.

Labels: College Stuff, Medical

posted by CK @ 23:09