A priority one trauma, a young pattawan, and 100mg dose of reality.

     One of my most recent shift I was working one of the rescue stations with both a new medic as well as a student. No big deal, I have worked with a whole gaggle of students before and have kept them intellectually stimulated and gainfully employed. So I didn't have an issue with it at all. Now, I hate to drive. However, the good thing about this particular shift was that I didn't have to do any of the documentation.
     The one issue I did have was that there was way too much talk about how we shouldn't take this call or bad mouthing other services and hospitals. now I am not a fan of a few facilities and services just like everyone else is. However, I have also been doing this a while and have formed my own opinions based off of experience.
     For the most part the day is steady with a good amount of posting and calls that require little more than IV, 02, and monitor. However, our last call of the day was a trauma call with a significant mechanism. We were second unit in for a head on collision with vehicle roll over going about 45 mph with entrapment. It was a pretty gnarly scene. Not the worst, but a good one for experience for both the student and the young pattawan.
     I will spare the details for the sake of time and for the ego of young medic working with me. But it boiled down to a few key points:

Scene safety
Let those in turnout gear do the extrication
Working as a team
Sense of urgency
You don't have to be in charge
Communication

     As you can see from the list above, these are topics and issues that classroom instruction may touch on but will not go into great detail about them or how important they can be. Well, other than scene safety. Point being that you have to truly experience these things in order to learn from them. Mistakes are going to be made by everyone. It is up to the person that made them to either learn from them or get upset. I think it was a learning experience for the rookie.
     Now with all that being said, I was not going to let him get hurt or chewed out for no reason. I made sure that he was going to ask all the questions that needed to be asked and have as many of the answers as possible at the hospital without taking over report or care of the patient. After all, the best way to learn is by doing.
     It was an interesting end to an otherwise vanilla day. Hopefully this was seen as a learning experience and not as a failure. All and all, good job.