EMT Class

So... I am about halfway through my EMT class now and I'm proud to say that I have a 97.85% overall grade. As far as I know, that is the best grade in the class! I got a 99/100 on the last written test and a 95/100 on the test before that. Not much else to say except that I hope I can keep it up.

We just got done learning about emergencies that involve altered levels of consciousness. These include diabetic emergencies, stroke, trauma, and drugs/alcohol. The class is getting really interesting because we spend a majority of the time running through scenarios and discussing possible actions, etc. with classmates.

One of tonight's simulated dispatches was a "66 yr. old male pt. complaining of chest pain." From this simulated dispatch Cliff (my instructor) will quickly ask the class to provide three possible scenarios: how about MI (myocardial infarction, aka. heart attack), trauma, and angina. Formulating these scenarios gets us thinking of what the possibilities are before we actually arrive on scene. Obviously we have to be prepared for anything, but it is good to get the thinking and investigating process started so you are thinking before you even arrive. Cliff always says that he wants to make "thinking EMTs" out of us because "our patients haven't read our book" and therefore won't present in the supine anatomical position with respirations between 12 and 20 breaths/min. and a BP of 120/80, etc. if you get what I mean...

Anyways... After we have this broad plan set up, we 'arrive on scene'. Is the scene safe? Have I taken enough body substance isolation precautions? How many patients do I have? Do I have enough EMTs and treatment capabilities available to me? Do we need to call advanced life support (ALS)? Do we need the cops?! What is the possible mechanism of injury or nature of illness? These questions should all be running through your head before you have even gotten out of the rig. Of course we always have to consider the possibility of spinal injuries, also.

On to patient assessment! First we have to form a general impression... Is the patient hunched over with his hand on his chest gasping for air? Is he even conscious? Is he diaphoretic and pale? We then need to talk to the patient, achieve expressed consent to touch them, and get his chief complaint. We need to check his level of consciousness. Hopefully he will be conscious and talking to you. That way you know he has a patent airway and you can achieve a focused history. After quickly assessing the ABCs (Airway, Breathing, and Circulation) we have to get a set of baseline vital signs.

The focused history ensues... Why did you call us? What hurts? When did the pain start? Does anything make the pain better/worse? Describe the pain... Does the pain move at all? On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being no pain and 10 being the worst pain you can imagine) how would you rate the pain? Is the pain constant? Does the pain come and go? Have you done anything to try and stop the pain? What are you allergic to? Are you taking any medications? Has this ever happened to you before? What was the last time you ate or drank anything, and what was it? What were you doing when the pain started?

Whew... And then comes the focused physical exam, detailed physical exam, several sets of vital signs, etc. All of this in (ideally) well under 10 minutes. Isn't it awesome!? This person's life depends upon you! You have to think quickly and stay calm and in charge. I love it... Now if I could just get out on a call! My emergency room time is scheduled for March 4 from 11:00pm to 9:00am... That's right, I purposely chose the night shift and I'm hoping to see something awesome like several gunshot wounds or something.

Sound good?

Later folks,
Daniel

The 90s... Hell Yeah!

The following is something I saw on MySpace (of all places) and it just made me smile and laugh because I knew EVERYTHING (except for 2 or 3)... I'm not even kidding.

Just because you were born in '97 doesn't mean you're a 90's kid.

It's not like you could remember the original Simpsons.
I am sorry but three conscious years of the 90's just wont cut it.

You're a 90's kid if:

You remember watching:
-Doug
-Ren & Stimpy
-Pinky and the Brain
-AAAAAAAH Real Monsters!
-Rockos modern Life.
-Animaniacs
-Gargoyles

You've ever ended a sentence with the word "PSYCHE!"

You just cant resist finishing this . . . "In west Philadelphia born and raised . . ."

You remember:
-Step by Step
-Family Matters!!!
-Dinosaurs
-Boy Meets World!!!!

You remember when it was actually worth getting up early
on a Saturday to watch cartoons.

You remember reading "Goosebumps"

You still get the urge to say "NOT" after (almost) every sentence . . . not

When everything was settled by:
-rock paper scissors or
-bubble gum bubble gum in a dish or
-ms. mary mack

when kick ball was a daily activity.

when we used to obey our parents

You used to listen to the radio all day long just to record your FAVORITE song of ALL time on a tape.

You remember when Super Nintendos and Sega Genisis became popular.

You remember The Original Game Boy.

You always wanted to send in a tape to America's Funniest Home Videos . . . but never taped anything funny.

You remember watching:
-The Magic School Bus
-Wishbone
-Reading Rainbow
-and Ghostwriter on PBS

You remember when Yo-Yos were cool.
You remember those Where's Waldo books.
You remember eating Warheads and Splashers Gum.

You remember watching:
-the 1st Batman
-Aladdin
-Ninja Turtles
-ghost busters

You remember Ring Pops.

If you remember when every thing was "da BOMB!"

You remember boom boxes .vs. cd players.

Making those little paper fortune cookie things, and then predicting your life with them.

You played and/or collected "Pogs" :)

You had at least one Tamagotchi, GigaPet, or Nano and brought it everywhere.

one word. . . . . . . .trolls.

Windows 95 was the best.

You watched the original cartoons of
-Rugrats
-Wild Thornberry's
-Power Rangers
-Rocket Power.

All your school supplies were "Lisa Frank" brand.

You collected those Beanie Babies.

Carebears

Lambchop's song never ended.

Silver dollars, which were cool to have.

Everyone watched the WB.

If you even know what an original walkman is.

You know the Macarena by heart.

"Talk to the hand" . . . enough said

You went to McDonald's to play in the playplace.

You remember playing on merry go rounds at the playground.

Before the MySpace frenzy . . .
Before the Internet & text messaging . . .
Before Sidekicks & iPods . . .
Before PlayStation3 or X-BOX 360 . . .
Before Spongebob . . .
Before Tupac was shot.
When light up sneakers were cool.
When you rented VHS tapes, not DVDs.

When gas was $0.95 a gallon.
When we recorded stuff on VCRs.
You had slap bracelets!
You Actually played outside until it was dark!

Way back.

Before we realized all this would eventually disappear.

Things I might add:

-Writing "ZAP" on your hand
-Mambo #5
-Beanie Babies
-Roller Blades
-Slip 'n Slides
-Super Soaker fights
-Pokemon

... That's all I got right now. But isn't this whole list awesome?!

Later,
Daniel

Grade Inflation: Justifying Mediocrity?

Quickly (and w/o any regard as to style and grammar)...

I was thinking today about what it would be like if every teacher suddenly switched to a completely curved grading system. Actually, a modified curved grading system would do, too; one with a passing cut-off and a failing cut-off. This would raise the competitiveness of schools and remove the problem of grade inflation... Finally an A would actually be worth something! And a C would be average again... Not only that, but the C average would actually be determined by the students grades instead of some arbitrary number that some teacher thinks is passing. Why is 75/100 questions 'passing' anyways? Have you ever thought about that? Usually teachers compensate for this by adding a certain number of points to every students test.

I don't know... I just think this would be so much better. And if it were up to me too, I would make a majority of the grade rely on test scores instead of homework... But that's just me. It boggles my mind as to how some people can just 'blank' on a test.

Ooh... And if we incorporated standardized tests into the mix, we could compare the curves of all schools and school districts. This way we could award more funding to whichever schools have the best scores in order to breed competition and rivalry. No teacher could ever mask there effectiveness by handing out 'A's all the time then. Of course, vouchers would be a must too.

Hmm... This stuff is so interesting!

Later,
Daniel

EMT Class... Continued

So I had my 2nd test a couple days ago. I missed one very minor point on the practical exam: I forgot to test the suction of the device before using it. Not exactly a life threatening issue but I still wish I hadn't missed it. On the written portion I got 95/100. Again, the best in the class that I know of.

So now we have moved onto the meat of the class: patient assessment. And let me tell you, it is a doozy! In the 'trauma' and 'medical' portion combined there are about 4 to 5 times as many steps to get down for the practical. In fact, this Saturday there is an 8 hour lab! 8 hours, that's right haha... It should be interesting.

Patient assessment is actually one of my favorite topics because it is the way that we get the big picture of what's going on in the patient's body. This includes the scene size-up, initial assessment, focused physical exam and patient history (SAMPLE history as well as OPQRST), rapid trauma exam, detailed physical exam, and on-going exams, etc. All this with vital signs and changing conditions smashed in between all of that. Even if you know all the medical stuff in the world you won't be able to solve the problem if you can't find it in the first place, which is why I like this stuff so much.

Anyways, have to go to bed!

Goodnight,
Daniel

An Excuse To Listen To Music

That's what this post is... I just can't stop listening to music right now and it's almost 2 in the AM. I am currently listening to the incredibly simple yet satisfying chord changes of "She's Got A Way" by Billy Joel.

Tomorrow (ahem... today) I have the second test(s) of my EMT class. There is a practical test and a written test encompassing all the information regarding 'airway'. This is extremely important because YOU NEED TO BREATH TO LIVE! But obviously you knew that... And of course if you aren't breathing than I need to help you! The tools EMTs use to create/maintain a stable airway range from oropharyngeal/nasopharyngeal airways, and suctioning devices, to oxygen (big one!), non-rebreather masks, and nasal cannulas.

Lucky for me I was already certified in Oxygen (O2) Administration by the Red Cross when I took my Emergency Response class with Steven over the summer. This definitely gave me an edge up. Not only that, but O2 administration has very mechanical steps which are easy for me to remember. Sometimes when you are in the moment, though, you can tend to forget what to do! That's why you have to be focused...

On all my last tests I have scored a 100%: the best in the class as far as the written portion goes. I am hoping to maintain an edge throughout the course in order to get a beaming recommendation for a firefighting position. Wish me luck! I feel confident and I have studied well so no worries, right? We'll see...

Anyways... I have to get to bed! That is, if I can ever get this music out of my head.

Goodnight,
Daniel

Why I Support Vouchers...

Later,
Daniel

Cool Robot Video

I thought this was a great idea. And it is especially interesting to me because we worked with similar Lego Mindstorms at the University of Washington.

The meat of our project at the UW was to build a robot that could navigate through certain obstacles. Okay, that was fine... But the best part of the project was where we had to battle our robots against the other teams' robots. I can't remember exactly, but I know we did alright on the navigation. For the battling we chose a different tactic than the other teams. Needless to say we creamed them. Most teams used physical means of destroying or debilitating the other robots; we didn't even need to touch them.

The robots themselves send and receive data through an IR port. This is the same as, say, your TV clicker. Usually you would simply use this port to download your programs and such to the device. Instead... And let me give almost all the credit to Steven on this one... We used the IR port to literally stop/turn-off the other team's robot. It worked perfectly, too! While Steven and I both came up with the idea in general, Steven was able to do a ton of research in order to find out exactly what bytes, etc. to send in order to get the other robots to stop.

The best part was that we told absolutely nobody about our plan. The first time we got it to work, we went into the test room and randomly fired off the 'stop' message to other robots. We were holding the robot at the time as well, so that nobody knew that it was us. In the same way that you can use the TV clicker from a distance, we were turning off other robots from a distance. The other teams were so perplexed... "what just happened?", "why did it just turn off?"! We could hardly keep a straight face!

In the obstacle course where we would battle, there was a turn that each robot had to come around in order to get to us. The robot would start to come around... And then stop! Haha... The first time this happened, the crowd of other students (and the other team) just fell silent and was completely disappointed. We then told them what we did and they were very pissed. Haha... I'm sorry, but it was just too awesome.

Anyways... That class at the UW was a really great time and I wish there were more hands on classes like it. Not only did we get to build small robots, we got to build small bridges (of which my teams bridge held the most weight) and some other stuff I can't remember... Oh well. I just really like working in a team to build awesome fun stuff like that.

Later,
Daniel