Everything EMT students will understand

EMT school is a crash course into what a medical career will be like very quickly. Here are some tips of the trade and funny struggles every EMT can relate to.

There are SO many medical terms and things to learn

When you get to the first few days of class it’s like, let me show you a million and one power point slides with tons of medical terms and information about certain areas in medical field. Now remember all of it and keep remembering all the new things on the many slides for the next 10-16 weeks. I’ve never heard so many terms for heart problems in my life, but now I remember them all!

You become friends with your classmates very quickly

Every person in your EMT school class is of differing ages and backgrounds. Despite this in every skills lab you do, you will be hands-on assessing them. So we all get comfortable with each other very quickly, otherwise that’s a whole lot of awkward evening skills labs together practicing real life scenarios.

Every paramedic and EMT you meet has a dark sense of humor

The paramedics and EMT’s we work with all do this job to help people. However, they have also done the job for a while and as medics they see a lot of stupid things done by stupid people over and over again. It’s easy to become desensitized after a while. So we experience a lot of laughing and storytelling of stories that aren’t funny because they are serious, but aren’t serious because they are hilarious scenarios that got the patient into that situation.

Riding in the back of an ambulance is incredibly fun

Whether you’re the one driving or the one in the back assessing a patient (which students usually are in the back), the lights, sirens and fast speeds are an adrenaline rush, no matter what. Talk about talking advantage of a loud speedy vehicle, of course in a very safe and yet totally awesome manner.

Medics and EMT’s do IV’s best

When your driving to the hospital on back roads swerving through streets and avoiding other cars the back of the ambulance is not stable. Those medics hold the needle close to the arm and sway back and forth as they count down from three and then, they plunge it in. They hardly ever miss and it’s incredibly impressive watching them get a needle stick in a loud moving vehicle when people at hospitals miss the stick multiple times in a row.

Taking vitals in the back of an ambulance is extremely difficult

Having someone siting down in a nice quiet setting and listening for their breathing, or listening for a heart beat while taking their blood pressure, or feeling for a pulse, is sometimes a little difficult, especially if you’re new at it (which we are). Add in movement, the patient in a weird position, people talking, sirens and horns, and taking vitals is pretty much impossible. When your attending medic looks at you and asks for numbers you couldn’t get, it’s pretty much the worst feeling ever.

Hospitals have secret lounges with the most amazing food

Once we drop our patients off in the hospital we are allowed some time to get everything in the ambulance back in order and chart for the patient. This means there’s wiggle room for food time and every hospital has a lounge for medics and EMT’s. They have fridges stocked with sandwiches, parfaits, salads, and fruit. They have freezers full of ice cream and popsicles. They have snacks like nutrition bars and bagels. Every hospital lounge is like a tiny wonderful section of a grocery store. You never have to pack your own lunch ever. It’s amazing.

We work crazy hard at what we do

When it comes to learning information and practicing skills, we work hard every week! There’s no break in the action in the real word and when your thrown in an ambulance or ER, these are people’s lives, we have to be prepared to know what we are doing and how to handle any situation. So we practice and work every day so we can get certified and feel totally awesome knowing we are badass medical providers who get to speed (safely obviously), in the coolest of the cool of vehicles.