EMT Class Week 14 - Skills Lab & Exam #4

Busy week.  Came down with the creeping crud over the weekend and had to miss Monday's skills lab (and a couple days' work) so I was really playing catch-up on Wednesday.

First order of business? Exam.

I should have studied harder.  That's all I can say at this point.  100 questions, and on the first page "hmm, I'll come back to that one, and that one, and that one..."  In all I starred 26 questions, meaning I wasn't sure I got the right answer.  I missed 17 (mostly by over-thinking the answer - I changed all but 4 of those from the correct answer to a wrong one).  So, note to self - go with your first instinct!

I was chatting extensively with Taylor and Floyd about this, as we all were disappointed in our scores.
"I do all the reading, the online content, the workbooks, practice quizzes, and I still barely pass!"
"I just don't get this question - it's stupid!"
"Either of these answers could be correct!"

That's pretty much how the conversations went.

Oh well, we passed.  Better on the next one for sure.
I spent hours this weekend reviewing the 200 page section just to make sure I feel comfortable with Medical Emergencies.  I still don't.

Best part of the week was the extrication/assessment challenge!  Since we have 2 ambulances right now (Effie and the new rig) we brought both down, set a patient in the driver seat, another in the passenger, split the class into 2 teams and saw who could do the job faster.  My team "officially" won, though an issue was raised that our overseer (Mr. Medic) was giving our team much more assistance than Van was giving his.

Even though I know our ambulance so well I could probably find most everything in the dark, getting the cot all the way down proved to be too much of a struggle.  Maybe it was panic, or the excitement, but I kept trying to kick it down and continually locked the dang thing up.  Mr. Medic had to jump in with a suggestion (tilt up first, then unlock, then depress lever...) and I finally got it.

The whole scene was so cool - watching my classmates put into action all the stuff we've been learning.  It was great.  At one point, I probably should have been in the ambulance (but there were 4 in back already) I was stowing gear, looked through the side window, and smiled at Mr. Medic, "look at them!  This is so cool! They are really doing this!"  First time I really felt like the whole team could handle a scene.

With supervision.
:)

Off to week 15 we go - Section 5 and Trauma!