I had a question come up the other day when I was conversing with a few CRNA's and I wanted to see what some other people viewed on this and if anyone has had an experiences. First to tell you alittle about me. I am 23 years old and I am a Critical Care Paramedic. I recieved my EMT at 18 and recieved my National Registry Paramedic through a College in Va. Beach Virginia. I have been a Paramedic for three years now and I spent the past two years working in North Carolina for a County Near Charlotte. It was a rural county, but with a large main city. Alot of my work out there was as a single Paramedic on a Quick Response Vehicle with the Rescue Squads providing transport and Basic Life Support Services. Needless to say I spent many calls working codes or severe situations by myself, waiting for a transport ambulance that sometimes would not arrive. I would sometimes have to wait 20+ minutes for a Paid County ambulance to come from the City to assist me. Needless to say I quickly learned to keep a cool head under fire and that I had to rely on myself. As we rotated every three weeks in the the city and out to the county. Having a level 3 trauma center meant we had to transfer alot of patients to either Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte or to Mission St. Joseph's in Asheville, NC in addition to our 911 EMS duties. I underwent in house critical care training with our Medical Director and the ICU training staff from our hospital and a few instructors flown in from U. of Ohio. We took everything out of that hospital from the Cardiac Cath patients to the unstable traumas out of the ER. I was always in the back with these patients and never had another Paramedic to help me for the hour+ drive. I gained alot of experience with this and have performed numerous intubations and used paralytics, rapid sequence intubation and the occasional "snowing with narcotics" of the patient to get the tube in (by Medical Order of course.) I moved back to Virginia to go after my goal of CRNA. I am currently working on an ADN degree through a bridge program for Paramedics and should be done at the end of this year. I am still working full time as a Paramedic for a hospital based ambulance service and my particular unit is contracted for ALS and Critical Care services from a smaller communtiy hospital. As before I am responsible for very critical paitents at times and do routine Cardiac Cath Calls and Intubated/Ventilator patients all the time (with any number is IV's and pumps running - Heparin, T&K, NTG, you name it). Being affiliated with Virginia's largest Health System and the number one heart center for the state, we are expected to have high standards and levels of care. As soon as I get my RN I am making a lateral transfer to a Large Level One Trauma Centers ICU into a nursing ICU internship program (benefit of my ambulance service being owned by a hostpital system.) While working there full time I will be completing the last year of the BSN and will be putting in for the next application process at a few CRNA schools. I have already brought my grades up to a 3.2 GPA and I am working on getting it even higher. Whew that was long, but I felt I needed to tell you the basis of what the CRNA told me.
I was told that all of that experience I had did not mean a thing to any admissions comittie and that it would not make a difference to me either way. The other CRNA told me that it would help to make me stand out some more seeing that I have had alot of experience already with Critical patients and tough and almost impossible airway situations (like being a mile in the woods with a state trooper holding a flashlight while I intubate an attemp. suicide patient in the rain - not fun at all, but I did it by the grace of God.) It just blew my mind that my experiences could be thrown out like that so easily. I have learned so much during that time and I try to remain as humble and skilled as I can to help my patients. Any ideas or toughts on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Sorry for it being so long, I just get passionate about topics like this when I get dicredited as being a Paramedic sometimes.
