Two very quiet day shifts.

Even the Padawan with all of his four week experience commented on how quiet it had been both at the Hospitals and on the radio.

Four jobs first day, five the second.
Most noteworthy?
Second day, until our last job our youngest patient had been Seventy four years of age.
So our average had been,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, yeah hang on,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and carry the two,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, got it!

Our average patient age had been 84.25 years until we blow it on the last job.

A Sixty two year old with Wobbly leg syndrome (See post on the 27th Oct 08).

And that has been the most notable thing about our days at work.

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Trainee Question Books.

The sale of my book was not really going well.

With fifty or so new trainee officers going through the Ambulance Education Centre every course I had expected there to be a regular sales pattern.

Just to retell the history of the book, my original mentor (training officer) prepared the first one for all the trainee officers on that station. I thought it was a bloody good idea, re-gigged the format and content, added a few things and made a better one for myself.

Other officers saw it and started to buy them off me either for themselves or their own trainee's. I thought it still a bloody good idea so I approached the Australian College of Ambulance Professionals in my state, they have an education bookshop at our school and were happy to stock it.

It's not an entrepreneurial undertaking for me.

I tried to give it to education but nobody wanted it so to get it out there I had to publish, assemble and promote it.

Well, it seems that a local Uni that has a Paramedic Course (that I didn't do well in, cause I'm a good ambo but a poor academic, and I know which one I want working on me in an emergency, Doctors and Nurses can be academicly smart{grads that get the on-road experience then make good ambos}) may be interested in my little book.

Looks like I'm going to re-visit publishers to investigate mass production (well more than the 100 I make on the coffee table), if any reader has contact in the publishing game feel free to drop me a line on the email.
It's a pocket sized book 11cm x9cm, with 22 pages printed on both sides, laminated and bound.

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

And that's a wrap.

Of this week anyway.

Padawan and I are developing our communication skills with each other as you do when you work as a team for eight weeks.
The teaching and development goes on. I envisage what my training officers might say along with my own perspective and then rethink it again before speaking.

I have offered to allow him to have as much time (within reason) with the patient as he wants and I have seen the silent panic look that invites me to take over treatment.

We are setting boundaries of where his knowledge does in fact cease.
He is young and confident and we are learning when that confidence is misplaced.

I am proud of the journey he is making.
That is one of the reasons I like to teach the new ones, get them young and learn them about,

Shiny Boots,
Clean and ironed uniforms,
A clean, washed (don't forget the wheel rims) and stocked ambulance,
Station duties,
The right way to drive both response and with a patient,
Scene assessment,
Scene control,
How you can go up to a complete stranger and get their most intimate details, no matter their age, sex, religion or race,
The correct protocols for the job
Not all chest pain is cardiac, if there is a story or evidence of trauma,
Vomiting does for a moment interfere with normal breathing but it is not a breathing problem like true SOB,
When in doubt, Airway, Breathing and Circulation they always help.
Respect for every patient, work mate and allied staff,
Coping with what we do.

It's hard, tiring work teaching and it's an honour.


Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Whatsup!

So three shifts done now with the new Padawan.

We're starting to make some progress but time will tell.
There's a good reason why the probation period is twelve months.
It takes that long to perfect the basics of the craft of Pre Hospital Care.

So we're spending a bit longer on patient health care records and not doing as many jobs as we might be otherwise.


Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

So it's been about three months since Tracy last went riding on her push bike.

What did we do today? Along a new track I discovered three or four months ago. A nice easy but long ride from near the international airport and follows the canals out to Homebush Bay.
It's a good three hour round trip without stopping along the way and she made comment on returning that she bet that I wasn't tight (muscular wise).

So I guess I deserve the deep snoring that has me out here in my study posting at this hour of the morning.


Picked up an overtime shift for what will now be tonight at my station and I've just calculated that my new Padawan and I will be on our second night shift for the final of the Australian Idol at the Sydney Opera House.

Always a few hyperventilators and a few minor injuries there but don't watch it on the off chance you might see me because you won't. The cameras never go near the Johnnies tent out the back, God bless volunteer Johnnies (no offence intended Outback, I fully appreciate them).

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

New Boots

And the first thing you should do is put some polish on them.

I love new boots.

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

NEWS FLASH!

Dit, dit dit, clack, clack sound like and old news reel news flash.

Zoom in on a serious looking newsreader with one hand over his ear and a deep voice.


Disturbing new 'glassing' trend found amongst Sydney party goers!
Several cases have been attended over the weekend of punters getting so intoxicated that they glass themselves.

Further detailed investigations (cutting through the pissed bullshit during history taking) has revealed this trend to be a result of slobbering clumsiness rather than violent intoxicated behaviour.

Fadeout back to normal transmission
Dit, dit,dit, clack,clack.

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz