Getting tired......

What up. OK so quick update on the course. Thing are moving long at an increasingly rapid pace. We're into medical situations now and we (at least myself for sure) are getting saturated. With pre-hospital care as a paramedic you have a set of protocols that dictate how you treat someone based on certain criteria. At first it was pretty simple but as we move along there are more and more protocols to remember and it's starting to get hard for me to remember every little thing about them. You can only give Ventolin if they have a history of this but can't if they're allergic to it, or you can give ASA for chest pain if they don't have any of these 4 things and nitroglycerin if they don't have these 4 things and their blood pressure is above this. This is actually the easy stuff for me. I know that I can manage a patient fine in a practical setting regardless of what it is so long as we've been taught it. The problem I have is with the studying at night. I prioritize like so: practical is most important since in my mind premium care for you patient is vital. Whereas knowledge, ie. knowing what causes acute renal failure is secondary, since in my practical mind set I should only have to know the signs and symptoms of ARF and how to treat it. This causes a problem since I spend all my "spare" time concentrating on the practical aspect of this phase when I should be devoting the majority of it the theoretical portion as there is a lot more to cover.

Anyway the course is going fine. According to the instructors they haven't seen a course get out as early as us (which is still around 4:30-5:00PM) consistently in years. I have to admit it's pretty cool to be here and be a part of it. I was talking about this with my girlfriend last weekend when she asked me if we (the course) were generally a cocky group of guys and I had to explain to her why we aren't. In the Navy I'll openly admit that I was confident and borderline cocky and I think it was because of the environment I was in. The majority of the people aren't physically fit, let alone to my standards and less than half are proficient at their jobs let alone excellent. So someone who IS fit and DOES excel........ it's hard not to get an exaggerated opinion of oneself. But here on this course it's easy to stay humble because you are challenged every day. You are surrounded by people that are in better shape and more knowledgeable than yourself in any given aspect. The instructors are second to none and are critical of the students' performance at all times. And just in case we can't keep ourselves in line they constantly remind us "you're doing good........ BUT don't let up". It's weird to hear stuff like that from them but when it happens I feel like a dog whose been given a treat for good behaviour.

Anyway that's about it. Tomorrows another day and I need to get back to studying instead of procrastinating which is why this entry is so fuckin' long.

Peace.