Who Me?
by

Not long after I graduated from Medic School (at the top of my class...thanks to 10 years as a long suffering EMT!), my partner and I got called out to a local nursing home the we were contracted to for transports. The call was just a routine (HA!) trip to the hosptial for round of anitboitics secondary to a UTI. Having not yet run a call as a newly minted (excellent vintage though) Paramedic, I was still thinking mostly along the lines of an EMT (despite a year of classes telling me otherwise). We picked up our stretcher and clipboard and proceeded into the NH.

Very casual approach, no one around, not unusual. As we get closer to the room, I see a slightly harried aide jog out and look dead at us. She stopped grabbed me, threw me into the room and announced to the world "THANK GAWD! THE MEDICS ARE HERE!" I took one look around with the thought in mind helping them get whatever the medics wanted. Just about the time my head made it second circuit of the room, my partner whispers to me, "They mean you, partner. You remember that patch on your sleeve right?" I took a look at one side, company patch. Ok. No problem there. Other side, damn, it does say paramedic, whose shirt have I got on anyway? Uhm, Name tag, that'll help. It's upside down, from this angle it looks like, yep thats me. Wow, I'm the medic that they are talking about.

I look at the charge nurse and she has theis very amused look on her face. "First call as medic, Dave?"

"Yeah"

"So. What do you want to do?"

"Can you tell me whats going on, please?"

She gives me a run down on our patient, grinning a bit the whole time. Turns out that our UTI was about to toss a pretty severe MI. I kicked into gear as soon as the first bit of history crossed the nurses lips. My partner was already moving. I started barking order''s, and amazingly everyone moved just like I told them to. We even managed to get the pt. to the ER alive and viable.

We went back to see that nurse later that shift, and she started cracking up. She said that I had the most 'deer in the headlights' look of anyone she had ever seen. Then she said it was suddenly gone and someone new moved in to that space. A very confident someone. Turns out I actually did learn something after all in the year of schooling. How to bluff like all get out when ambushed!

Dave L. (15 year career medic)