Today we had our PAPR (Powered Air Purifying Respirator) Suit fitting and HAZMAT training at work.

Snapped this quickie before I doffed. This is post chem-tape and my respirator is a little crooked. The only way to model a PAPR suit is to smize, cuz it’s all ya got.

We also studied and tested on our Duodote auto injector (dual atropine and pralidoxime chloride) protocols for organophosphate & other nerve agent exposure. It’s crazy how quickly you become rusty on this stuff. So glad my company holds these training and fit test sessions.

Scarily enough, my running into organophosphates while on the job is not that far out of the realm of possibility. These chemicals are apparently heavily used in almond fields, which they have quite few of in Santa Clara county. Hopefully I won’t be encountering them in the field any time soon.

Rank                 Specialty

1. hematology
2. radiation oncology
3. infectious disease
4. rheumatology
5. emergency med
6. occupational med
7. physical med & rehabilitation
8. dermatology
9. med oncology
10. pediatrics
11. neurosurgery
12. nephrology
13. gastroenterology
14. colon & rectal surgery
15. anesthesiology
16. allergy & immunology
17. ophthalmology
18. obstetrics/gynecology
19. aerospace med
20. plastic surgery
21. thoracic surgery
22. radiology
23. psychiatry
24. preventive med
25. general internal med
26. family practice
27. endocrinology
28. pulmonology
29. nuclear med
30. urology
31. otolaryngology
32. orthopaedic surgery
33. neurology
34. general surgery
35. cardiology
36. pathology

Interesting results.  Glad to see Emergency Medicine up there in the top five   That, combined with how much I love working as an EMT, shows an inkling of me being on the right track.   Surprising to see how adverse I am to cardiology!

Take the test yourself here.

Or, save yourself the time of taking the Aptitude Test by referring to this handy flow-chart. It lands me solidly in Emergency Medicine

Guess what’s looming in my immediate future?  A 24hour shift, starting tomorrow at 5am!

One thing I am loving about my new job is the ability to pick up lots of open shifts… and how many open shifts seem to come up!   Bring on that OT, baby!   I’ve picked up two extra December shifts so far just today.  Being the newbie, I ended up with a really crap schedule this month.  12-hour shifts on Fridays (7am-7pm), Saturdays (5am-5pm) and Sundays (5am-5pm).  Eisch!  The schedule is planned based on seniority, and guess who is the newest person there and got the most unwanted schedule?!?!  THIS GIRL!  Lol.  I don’t mind, though…  Honestly I’m just psyched to be working at all, and this gives me flexibility and time to pick up open shifts during the week.

This will be my first 24-hour shift at the new company.  Hopefully it will go better than my 1st 24-hour shift at my last ambulance company… which SUCKED.  I remember my clothes chafed off all the skin where they touched my body in my armpits groin, and under my sports bra.  I remember how bad the board and cares smelled- to this day, just thinking of that one really rank place in Oakland STILL makes me gag a little.

The smells, the chafing of the thick polyester uniforms, the heat in the back of the rigs, the MRSA, the urine and the feces… I am all used to all that now, and have developed systems to deal with those things gracefully.   Also, my patient assessments flow much better nowadays, and I am better at lifting the gurney (and am finding that we seem to have WAY LESS bariatric patients in the city of San Francisco and Peninsula than we did on the east bay).  Hope it goes well tomorrow!

Anyways, off to bed because this corgi lover has to get up at 3:30am to get her butt to work!  Looking forward to my first 24. 

Lucy found herself a snug nook curled up in our down comforter. Funny how she smooshed down the goose down and the rest puffed up surrounding her to form a soft, warm bed.

Kitten was purring up a storm! I actually heard the “engine” rumbling from another room and walked over to investigate what was going on.
Just look at that cute little nose.

Never was a cat person til I fell in love with a handsome, nerdy cat owner. This cow-colored furball pawed her way into my formerly feline-adverse heart.

In other news, today was a SUPER productive day. It’s amazing how much better you are at getting things done when you’re already busy. Back in ye olde Days of Unemployment just one of these tasks would have been completely arduous and taken up the whole day; I would have put off all this stuff for days on end. The phenomena of “when you’re already busy, you tend to be more productive” warrants a more succinct, catchy moniker. Paging Malcom Gladwell.

Today I:
- went running with Linus in the morning
- dropped Earl off at work
- went to Quest Diagnostics to get my blood drawn for my new job (and they said it might take up to TWO WEEKS for the results to come back because they have to ship it to SoCal… ARRRRGGH WTF?!?!?! i know you have a freaking analysis center right there in the back of your lab just RUN IT NOW I WANT TO START WORKING!!!!!! ARGH!@#@!#@# Also- back when I was on the trading floor at JPMorgan, I worked my butt off for weeks running prospectuses around to institutional investors for Quest Diagnostic’s IPO. way to pay me back with crap slow service, Jerks.)
- met my friend Elaine and her husband Tyler in the Castro for coffee and a leisurely chat (and we sat on that exact same stoop as that photo, heh)
- met Earl at his office and we went to get our Affidavit of Domestic Partnership notarized for our insurance benefits
- drove to Redwood City
- got fitted for my new uniforms for work
- waited an hour and a half for my uniforms to get tailored
- came home and did a load of laundry
- caught up with my good friend Terri from back east for an hour on the phone
- made a butternut squash, pear & onion au gratin casserole (topped with breadcrumbs, crumbled bacon, walnuts and Romano cheese- YUM) for dinner. in the oven right now and DAMN does it smell so dern good!!

Some photos from the uniform shop:
Apparently these flashlights are all the rage. They were flying off the shelves- four policemen/sheriffs came in and bought them while I was there getting my alterations. From what I overheard, they are super bright, last for several hours, charge in 90 seconds and don’t take any batteries. Revolutionary!
I have noticed during my brief tenure in EMS that any product with the word “Tactical” in it tends to be more desirable and also way jacked up in price. Tactical golf balls! Tactical underwear! When no ordinary flashlight will do… extremely dark darkness demands a TACTICAL flashlight (right under the flashlight display they were selling tactical polo shirts).

[unrelated: several *extraordinarily* hunky CalFire men also came into the uniform shop while I was getting my alterations. just pointing that out. ATTN single ladies- stake to uniform stores to meet cute guys!! though this uniform shop wouldn't work for that... you needed a writ of employer (ie- your employer paying for your uniform) to get inside... very high security... maybe they had too many single ladies in there trolling for dates while dudes were trying to shop, haha]

Back to photos, something tells me “the man” is in on the joke:

And finally- MY NEW WORK UNIFORMS!!! still in the plastic wrap to avoid being “furred” from my two four-legged loves who enjoy nothing more than helping decorate my laundry. I also got some new black boot polish for my work boots and picked up a couple crisp white new under armor under shirts. MAN I AM SO PSYCHED FOR MY FIRST DAY. wish that freaking blood work would come back already.

update: ha! after writing this post and finishing up some stuff online I went to the bedroom and found this. Not only is Lucy staking out “her man,” but she’s made another “nest” out of the fluffy down comforter. she must be in kitten heaven in this picture!! hilarious cat.

ps- yes, all the cat ever does, really, is laze around in bed. sometimes she chases around the sunbeams.

screen grab from a recent EMS presentation over at AMR HQ. Hee-larious.

These guys just killed it. Their entire presentation had us in stitches. Part of it also had this picture of OJ as the slide for “BSI” (the scene is not safe because his gloves do NOT fit!). hee hee.

ps- for more zombie laffs, the nerd recommends reading this

….. hey, neat.

Even better when said letter contains…. AN OFFER LETTER!!
Whoooooo

That’s right, I’m moving on up in the world; as of a few weeks, and I’ll be working as an EMT right here in the city! No more 40 minute commute to the East Bay for this girl.

And, and, and… even better- this offer comes with a three dollar an hour raise! Peanuts for my high-rolling readers, perhaps… however that comes out to be a 32% raise, I’ll have you know. Not too shabby. I’ll take it!

Wish I could celebrate more, but I am sort of down and out with a pretty whopper of a cold (My timing of making a giant pot of Matzoh ball soup was spot on, right?). However, I am so, SO excited to get this great news this week. E and I have plans to celebrate with a mega sushi dinner as soon as I get my first paycheck.

If you had to narrow your motivations for volunteering in the Emergency Department at SFGH to just one word, what would it be?
Please limit your answer to just one word.

Hmm, hmm…. what to go with here?  Under consideration:

• Compassion
• Benevolence
• Service
• Community

Ones I’ve already ruled out:

• “drugs”
• “fun”
• “delusion”
• “feces”
• “experience”
• “LOR” (letter of recommendation)
• “thrills”
• “5150″
• “addicts”
• “resume”
• “job”
• “guts”
• “meeting cute doctors”

Well, this moved along quickly (Much faster than I thought it would- TB test, background check, orientation & interview all completed in under a month)!

Today was my training day as a volunteer at the new ER. It seems a bit more… strict than the last Emergency Department where I used to volunteer. Because it’s a higher volume, higher level trauma center teaching hospital, it makes sense that they have to keep a tighter reign on the volunteers. This could be a bummer, because it means I’ll get to do less stuff (no more helping nurses take samples, put in IVs and foleys), however they do have ER Technicians, which I’m hoping to become… Hopefully I can befriend a few of the ER Techs, learn those ropes and perhaps even network my way in eventually.

The vibe I got was you basically go in, put your face down and do the work for about two or three months and not really bother anyone, and then once they get a feel for you, you can start kind of asking questions, making yourself a bit more known, observing treatments and doing a bit more. It seems like they get a lot of volunteers who just come in, do it for two or five months, and then leave… so I could see why the high turnover is a big disincentive for the nurses and physicians to want to make an investment in getting to know the volunteers. Hopefully after a while if I make it known that I’m a student, relatively intelligent and hardworking, and eager to learn I can find someone willing to take me under their wing and get some exposure. I *did* recognize one doctor already who I know already from volunteering in the ED at St. Lukes- crazy what a small city this is!

As for right now, it looks like my duties are going to consist mainly of cleaning and changing beds, restocking room supplies, liaising with patients and generally helping nurses and physicians with whatever else they need. I think I’m going to put together a giant fruit plate (or cookies? On the fence about this… it seemed like the last ER where I volunteered used to get so many freaking trays of sweets all the time that I bet they would be dying for some healthy stuff) and bring it in for all the nurses next week for my first shift as a way to get started on the right foot.

There were so many beds! I feel like I barely oriented myself!! My training was about two hours long. I was trained by a person in a very similar situation as myself- he is a career changer as well. Formerly an IT executive, he’s now going to nursing school. Not only was he a great trainer, but super helpful telling me about some colleges around here to be doing post-bacc classes. He currently volunteers in the ICU at the same hospital, so perhaps we’ll run into each other again.

Oh my gosh- you know what else?? The uniforms we get to wear as volunteers are FREAKING ADORABLE!!! They consist of a scrub “seersucker” blazer and khaki cargo scrub pants. Instant love. I have to say, very very cute… I loved my old volunteer uniform as well. What can I say, I guess scrubs suit me. I’ll post up some photos of the uniform soon- right now I am heating up the iron to iron-on the Emergency Department patch they gave me. Lol- iron on patches. How old school is that? We don’t even own an iron, I had to borrow one from our neighbors.

So as it stands right now, I’ll be volunteering every Wednesday for a five-hour block. Once I’ve done that for a few months or so, and learned the ropes a little, I think I am going to try and get in on an “exciting” shift… maybe Friday or Saturday late nights. My trainer told me to expect to see a lot of ETOH and otherwise altered patients.

All in all, really psyched! Here’s to another step in the right direction towards future goals.

phrase muttered by me at our dinner table tonight:

“what do you mean, you don’t want to hear about how we got to see an actual pig heart in v-fib while you eat your pizza?!”

(then  he facepalmed me)

Tomorrow I will be volunteering all day at the SFPA Conference The ABCs of Emergency Medicine.

The only bummer is that it is 12:30am right now, and I have to be there ready to go at 7am, which means a cool 5:30am wake up call for me (factors in time to shower in the am and then a major cushion of time to deal with unreliable SF Muni bus system to get there). Blergh. However, when the director of the SFPA asks you to volunteer, you clear your schedule and do what it takes to volunteer!

One thing I am learning as an newbie EMT is that there are about a zillion ways to get involved in EMS. Perhaps because EMS is a relatively new branch of medicine, there seems to be this incredible abundance of opportunities for those want the exposure. One aspect in particular which I am hoping to get involved with in the near future is the research side of things. I find it fascinating how quickly EMS protocols develop and change- again, because it is such a new field, there is so much room for development. For example, ALREADY (and I have only been out of school 5 months!) the protocols that I learned for tourniquet application have updated and completely changed. Crazy, right? With any luck in the next few months I’ll be able to network my way into SF General’s trauma research center, or somewhere similar.

The nice thing about “working” the conference is the chance to see all these incredible speakers for free! The SFPA seems to put on at least one or two great lectures each month, tomorrow’s conference being the biggest. It seems like a few of the presentations will be over my head (more geared towards CCT nurses, etc), however there are a bunch of lectures which I am psyched to observe.

Here is what Linus thinks of me spending my day at the conference:

Also, off topic, but check out Earl’s new haircut! Doesn’t he look handsome?

G’night!