u/Fit-Survey-6678

There was one very arrogant CCMA I had when I was getting bloodwork. I could tell she was a little green and very young, so I let her pin-cushion me a little bit for practice. No harm, I'm 20 years old myself and premed. Also young. I'm also an EMT and probably don't understand how hard medical assisting can be. I let my students in the ER do it all the time. It's one of the only ways to get better - practice.

She ended up sticking me 12 times before I said "hey - I'm an EMT in the ER and start IVs all the time for emergent patients dealing with dehydration and stuff and I think I'd pick this vein. it's bouncy, big enough to take a 14 gauge no problem."

Then she said "y'all the ER and only see the patient for 2 mins and send them away, y'all just some glorified send-awayers. i was in the ICU in college. that's why we have beds and y'all have stretchers"

I'm sorry, what the fuck? Okay. Just pick the vein I suggested or one you can actually see because it's starting to get painful.

After attempt 20, she picked the vein I suggested and finally got blood.

Yesterday, since I was an EMT-B, I was stationed front desk (since we can recognize when someone needs to go back ASAP). Other days I can do cool shit like start IVs, vitals, and splint if there's another EMT-B.

A patient comes in saying that, verbatim:

"my asshole is sore and my dick feels like it got rug burned"

I successfully held it back, but later, my partner and I burst out laughing after he was roomed. It wasn't the chief complaint that was funny, it genuinely must have been uncomfortable for the patient. It was the way he said it that made me giggle.

I was a seventh-year high school student in the auto shop, and the mechanic was like Robert go ahead and hammer the bumper into place. When I held that hammer in my hand, it did something to me. I knew then I wanted to be an ortho bro. Now every time I hold a hammer in my hands before I make the first incision, that first cut on a patient, I get an erection. My 208th bone stands up. Does anyone else get that feeling as an ortho bro? Lol, or am I a sick bastard?

There are certain.. specialties that y'all gravitate towards. I had orientation with a massive medical network a bit ago. I was one of like 5 out of the 50 in the room that picked the ER or Urgent Care (2 ER one being me, 3 being Urgent Care). Most picked plastics, derm, or a surgical subspecialty. Or anything else.

Several and I mean SEVERAL of them were premed as well. A lot of them actually told me when we were told to get to know everyone else.

Initially this scared me, especially since I was literally restless when I was a CCMA in the medical ICU. My coworkers literally said "calm down. please. i can't stand to see you take another lap around the unit or whine about wanting to do stuff."

I got my EMT since it interested me. I'm premed, so I needed the hours anyway.

I say this with my heart:

**I LOVED THE ER. I LOVE THE ER.**

I love seeing a chest pain pt and being tasked with being as outwardly chill as possible while getting an IV and getting labs for a CBC, CMP, D-dimer, BNP, and trop and a 12 lead EKG. I love giving nitroglycerin and seeing them immediately feel better. I love reassuring a terrified new mom that comes in with a screaming baby that a 99 temp is fine. I love teaching my students. I love watching netflix documentaries with my coworkers when our ER is quiet and empty. The muddling of scopes is a decent touch in shortstaffed ERs. I love being a voice of calm when everything seems to be falling apart for the patient.

I was more curious as to why everyone flocks to these. Maybe it's a sampling bias. Maybe not. Idk. These specialties are fine, I'm honestly just curious.

There are certain.. specialties that y'all gravitate towards. I had orientation with a massive medical network a bit ago. I was one of like 5 out of the 50 in the room that picked the ER. Most picked plastics, derm, or a surgical subspecialty. Or anything else.

Initially this scared me, especially since I was literally restless when I was a CCMA in the medical ICU. My coworkers literally said "calm down. please. i can't stand to see you take another lap around the unit or whine about wanting to do stuff."

I got my EMT since it interested me. I'm premed, so I needed the hours anyway.

I say this with my heart:

I LOVED THE ER. I LOVE THE ER.

I love seeing a chest pain pt and being tasked with being as outwardly chill as possible while getting an IV and getting labs for a CBC, CMP, D-dimer, BNP, and trop and a 12 lead EKG. I love giving nitroglycerin and seeing them immediately feel better. I love reassuring a terrified new mom that comes in with a screaming baby that a 99 temp is fine. I love teaching my students. I love watching netflix documentaries with my coworkers when our ER is quiet and empty. I love being a voice of calm when everything seems to be falling apart for the patient.

I love the ER.

I was starting an IV. TQ on and everything. Flushed fine, patient tolerated the flush and I didn't see the skin rising. then a few minutes later on a saline drip, she complained of pain. we removed it and it seemed fine. then all of us tried and couldn't get it. luckily it wasn't that i fucking suck at IVs at least, she was a deceptively easy (but actually hard) stick lol

Not to disparage front desk, they do very important things. It's just not for me.

My brain needs challenge. The hard stick. The challenging case. The awkward splint. Anything that requires you to put forth cognitive effort. I always try to go clinical, but I'm not allowed to since there's either someone else there or a higher ranking staff member (LVN or medic, I'm a basic).

Even running labs is fine.

I feel physically unwell doing repetitive shit. I used to do triage, labs, and other clinical. After a transition, triage was off the books, and was replaced by front desk for techs. Usually the lowest ranking person is here, and that's mostly the basic.

How do I avoid the sickening feeling of doing nothing while things are happening around you?

Registration was talking with a patient while I was starting an IV. Both of us work in an ER. The team member is young, only a little older than me (she's 23 and I just turned 20). We're both premed (I spoke to her a little bit just to talk about life, shit gets boring during slow hours). She's an aspiring neurosurgeon, I'm an aspiring ER doctor.

So while she was talking about payment plans and shit, I was putting the tourniquet on her, found an AC vein, inserted the needle, flattened, and then advanced the actual cannula. Boom, IV in. The problem is that this patient was obviously terrified of IVs and even started sobbing after I got my ALCOHOL PREP out. Obviously very, very terrified. I put down the cannula for a moment and said "hey. I know you're scared, it's okay. It's just a pinch and some pressure. Would you like her (registration) to hold your hand?" and she, mid-sob, said "yes please." I asked her to hold her hand if she wanted to and she said "she oughta not be such a scaredy cat, it doesn't hurt that bad. you don't get blood draws every year?"

I immediately shot her a "what the fuck?" glare and she backed away, knocking the IV equipment off the tray. I got a new kit and eventually allowed her to hug me/grip my scrubs while I was starting it. She took it pretty well. Then I had a long talk with registration outside. This is what I said:

"the way you spoke to her is not okay. I need you to understand that. She might not have enough money to get yearly blood tests. She also might have a lot of money but need to work endless hours to upkeep her salary and household. Notice how she flinched when I got out a very standard alcohol prep? That isn't a sign of someone who has the luxury of getting yearly blood tests. Knocking the tray off is fine, I can always get new supplies. Using your position of authority to taunt a scared and vulnerable patient on the stretcher is absolutely never okay."

and she said "whatever it's not a big deal, act like a man sometimes and have some command."

We work on a skeleton crew, so my training was sort of trial by fire. This means my team and I got really close together. We share jokes, games, and a lot of things. Even the doctor (who usually hates interacting) waved at me when I was walking in and said "go get em!"

My last shift is coming up in the ER, after which I will be going back to uni to finish out premed (going into junior year). My team is well aware that I love the ER and am seriously considering it for when residency comes around (but I won't lock myself to it right now).

I shared my sadness about leaving during my previous shift and they said "don't be silly, you're coming back here as a doctor."

It sounds a little melodramatic or childish but I've sort of been thinking that this was my favorite summer :( I got to do what I love with the people I enjoy being around.

What more can I wish for?

So I'm an EMT and probably won't work in a doctor's office, but I enjoyed self studying for the exam and discovering a whole new area of medicine I never even knew existed. I pulled a 429 somehow.

The NREMT is an adaptive exam (i.e. the test asks you questions at your level by ramping up and down the difficulty until it is 95% confident you passed or failed). It then takes that level (or the level you're at at the last possible item) and corresponds that to a pass or a fail.

Do you think the CCMA exam would benefit from this style of questioning?

I'm going to apply to MD and DO schools since I'm really thinking of doing EM or trauma surgery in med school, and per my understanding being DO doesn't really damage your prospects significantly for these.

I only have 200 hours from this summer as an ER tech (first clinical job I didn't get insta-fired from). It took losing my CNA license (not due to performance but because it expired since I got fired from every CNA job in the ICU and nursing home I tried to keep). I have a 911 EMS gig I'm planning on doing every Saturday and holiday when college starts.

My GPA is kinda shite (can be a 3.67 if I really lock in these remaining two semesters and maintain a similar performance I have been doing, really tryina not take a gap year). I have a very hilarious upward trend, I royally fucked up my first semester at college but literally jumped up a whole grade point the next semester GPA.

Gradually gaining clinical and nonclinical volunteering.

I take biochem this sem, during which I'll begin prepping for the MCAT.

Title. Rising junior. This fall, I'm continuing to work for a 911 municipal EMS service (not collegiate EMS, an actual municipal service. My college's EMS is not 911 anyway since you have to call a weird ass number to dispatch them so idk why I'm putting this qualifier in, but fuck it).

This summer, I worked as an ER tech and accured around 200 hours and got to place IVs, give high stakes IM drugs, triage, 12 lead EKGs, and do POC testing.

My research is within the field of emergency medicine as well.

My volunteering will pretty much be localized to the ER and a crisis line.

Literally every experience I have is emergency medicine. One of my friends got feedback by a med school a previous cycle saying they needed to diversify their experiences.

Furthermore, Dr. Ryan Gray says that your experiences should be diverse.

Only problem is that I tried to work in the ICU, medsurg, and all of the inpatient units (including a rehab home) and I just.. couldn't do it. I genuinely struggled and ended up getting fired very, very quickly.

But I did thrive in the ER roles I talked about above. It was kind of funny how quickly I earned trust in my ER. On my second day, my preceptor said "yo bro wanna go give 10 migs of IM dex to a patient?" and I said "uhm... I'm scared" and he said "bro just palpate the acromion with two fingers, make a triangle below that, and aim for the center of the triangle and it's okay if it's not perfectly center. muscle is muscle homie"

I'm scared I'm going to receive the same fucking feedback my friend did.

Title. Rising junior. This fall, I'm continuing to work for a 911 municipal EMS service (not collegiate EMS, an actual municipal service. My college's EMS is not 911 anyway since you have to call a weird ass number to dispatch them so idk why I'm putting this qualifier in, but fuck it).

This summer, I worked as an ER tech and accured around 200 hours and got to place IVs, give high stakes IM drugs, triage, 12 lead EKGs, and do POC testing.

My research is within the field of emergency medicine as well.

My volunteering will pretty much be localized to the ER and a crisis line.

Literally every experience I have is emergency medicine. One of my friends got feedback by a med school a previous cycle saying they needed to diversify their experiences.

Furthermore, Dr. Ryan Gray says that your experiences should be diverse.

Only problem is that I tried to work in the ICU, medsurg, and all of the inpatient units (including a rehab home) and I just.. couldn't do it. I genuinely struggled and ended up getting fired very, very quickly.

But I did thrive in the ER roles I talked about above. It was kind of funny how quickly I earned trust in my ER. On my second day, my preceptor said "yo bro wanna go give 10 migs of IM dex to a patient?" and I said "uhm... I'm scared" and he said "bro just palpate the acromion with two fingers, make a triangle below that, and aim for the center of the triangle and it's okay if it's not perfectly center. muscle is muscle homie"

I'm scared I'm going to receive the same fucking feedback my friend did.

So my asthma is mild persistent per my doctor, and he told me to stop my daily controller for a month before the appointment for some reason.

Yesterday, I maxed everything out. Ran at my max, benched at my max, curled at my max, no rest or warm up (I'm kind of reckless in the gym, my personal philosophy is that the ER can probably fix whatever I fuck up by being a moron). What's more, I work in the ER and hope to be a physician in the ER in a few years, so I can probably embarrass my friends a little by showing up there tehe

Jokes aside, after the treadmill and stairmaster, I felt totally fine. However, on the drive home, I started having the more usual asthma symptoms (cough, wheeze I can hear without my stethoscope, chest feels funny, etc.).

My chest sort of.. tickles? It's hard to tell if it's just tightness or if it's tickly as well. I took my inhaler at home and almost immediately, the wheezing was gone. The cough lasted for 5 minutes and then it was gone too.

Hey all.

I had to take an almost year long hiatus from EMS since I fucked up my shoulder right after graduating EMT school playing volleyball (self-reducing dislocation causing a bankart-type tear in my labrum and a hills sachs fracture). I'm not even a sportsey person, but I was just screwing around with my friends when I hit the ball like a moron (backhanded power shot).

Right as the summer began, my ortho surgeon said "okay, we're still going to try PT. do some PT and followup with me. in the meantime, as long as you're not excessive with the shoulder, it probably won't dislocate again. you can probably go back to the ambulance, just be smart with the stress you put on the shoulder."

For any of you ortho nerds, no I can't receive a cortisone shot since my doctor refuses to give anyone under the age of 22 a cortisone injection for some reason (I just turned 20).

I worked in the ER this summer back home as an ER tech and got my feet wet with placing IVs, IM and PO meds, triage, EKGs, and some patient assessment.

I return to the ambulance mid august. I went one shift in May but have been off the box since due to summer break. Any tips to not be a buffoon when I return again?

Hey all.

I had to take an almost year long hiatus from EMS since I fucked up my shoulder right after graduating EMT school playing volleyball (self-reducing dislocation causing a bankart-type tear in my labrum and a hills sachs fracture). I'm not even a sportsey person, but I was just screwing around with my friends when I hit the ball like a moron (backhanded power shot).

Right as the summer began, my ortho surgeon said "okay, we're still going to try PT. do some PT and followup with me. in the meantime, as long as you're not excessive with the shoulder, it probably won't dislocate again. you can probably go back to the ambulance, just be smart with the stress you put on the shoulder."

For any of you ortho nerds, no I can't receive a cortisone shot since my doctor refuses to give anyone under the age of 22 a cortisone injection for some reason (I just turned 20).

I worked in the ER this summer back home as an ER tech and got my feet wet with placing IVs, IM and PO meds, triage, and some patient assessment.

I return to the ambulance mid august. I went one shift in May but have been off the box since due to summer break. Any tips to not be a buffoon when I return again?

I used to be able to, but after a recent transition, we all lost that privilege? What the fuck? I start them on the ambulance all the time. Hell, I have asthma myself, so I need to start them on myself a lot of times! At this point, it not only falls on an EMT deficiency, but a personal deficiency of a skill I'll probably need for daily life outside of the ER or ambulance.

We had 2 order sets for patients, so I couldn't start the IV under supervision. I had to fly solo.

I didn't need supervision. Not anymore. Nailed a 20g left AC, confirmed with flush, taped it down, and hung a liter of saline wide open without the RN or another tech

I was just doomscrolling (as one does) and I got a Gray's Anatomy clip in my feed where an intern hooked a pacemaker patient with a dislodged lead's IV up to O2 by accident. I also didn't see any pads on the patient for pacing.

I'm literally just a tech in the ER (but can start IVs) but wouldn't you get the pads on the patient and start pacing?

Furthermore, how the fuck do you hook a patient's IV up to O2? The luer-lock is literally not long enough, and if you try to spike a bag, there's a sharp spike that physically cannot penetrate the hole for O2.

The math ain't mathin here.