My Markers

My internship seems to be marked more by significant calls than anything else. This morning, my crew and I worked a cardiac arrest and things went exactly the way they were supposed to. It was like the validating run of my whole internship up to this point. I got the intubation on the first attempt, I ran the scene efficiently and smoothly, made good use of the firemen that were there, and literally made every effort to save this person's life. I talked with some of the firemen at the hospital afterwards and they told me that when they walked through the door, they could immediately tell that I was calm, in control, confident, and that I knew exactly what needed to be done. It was such a great thing to hear that I'm actually progressing as a Paramedic intern.

I can look back at certain calls during my internship and pinpoint certain runs where things clicked into place. My first field intubation made me realize that it's nothing like the OR. My first acute MI made me realize that I needed to step it up and be more efficient on scenes. When I went on my first overdose, things went great because everything from school just came together. Now, I've worked in the field as an EMT-Intermediate for 2 years already, which by no means makes my a seasoned veteran, but it definitely gave me a tremendous head start on my internship. On my evaluations that my preceptors note that I'm knowledgeable and skillful, but needed more challenging calls to progress. This morning was the call that marked the "confident intern" point of my internship. I still have a lot to learn and a long way to go, but I'm not as self-doubting and apprehensive as I was a month ago.