Clinic work

When there is nothing going on EMT wise, I help out about the clinic as best I can. This partially entails getting vitals on patients in the waiting rooms, helping with basic procedures which don't require certification (like redressing wounds or filling syringes), and cleaning up after we finish with a patient. The rest of the time I get to watch everything and ask as many questions as I can think of.

The first time I had to get a full set of vitals, I forgot to record the lady's respiration. That's done by watching how many times a person's chest rises and falls in thirty seconds, and then doubling it. Right before I went back into the examination room to get it, I stopped and wondered how I was going to go about doing it without her wondering why I was staring at her chest for half a minute. You're not supposed to tell a patient when you take respiration, because they tend to subconsciously alter their breathing if they know it's being monitored. In the end, I told her I needed to take her pulse manually and just held her wrist so that I could look past it.

Not that I'm keeping count or anything, but I've now seen Tangled, oh... eleven times? Twelve times? I actually found myself singing "Mother Knows Best" under my breath whilst I was dealing with a toddler today. /facepalm At least no one else noticed it. Seriously though, I stepped into the room, started to say hel- "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" And the kid disappear behind the table. I like to think I work well with children, but there's only so much I can do when I can't even make myself heard over them, nor make myself seen by them. The way he reacted, you'd think I was the bogeyman come to drink his bones.