My Internship

I'm roughly 1/3 of the way through my paramedic field internship and as of yet, I still don't have a lot of confidence in taking care of a complicated patient. That being said, I can handle 98% of all the patients that I run on without any problem at all. After all, I live in town where the geriatric population is high and the majority of the patients we take to the hospital are "I can't poop" or "it hurts when I pee." The minority are a little more serious with complaints like "it's hard to breath" or "I'm having chest pain." I guess what I have problems with is taking charge and having a clear line of thinking on patients that are having the massive heart attack or the flash pulmonary edema event.

I should also realize that I'm only 250 hours into my internship and that I have a lot left ahead of me and that maybe I'm right where I'm supposed to be. It just feels overwhelming--more so than when I was in the class room. Mess up on a test and it's okay; mess up on drug dosages in the field or misdiagnose a patient and there are serious consequences.

I'm also the kind of individual that knows more and responds better under pressure than I think I do. I'm harder on myself than I need to be sometimes, at least that's what my preceptors tell me. I just want to be a good paramedic, not the C average medic that barely passed his test. I want to be the paramedic that when people talk about they say "he's a damn good paramedic. I'd let him take care of my family."

Or maybe that's me being a little too arrogant.