I understand this is not the place for paramedics and I apologize for that in advance but I was hoping I can post this to see if there were any former medics here that had some advice. Even nurses who can give advice would be great as well.
Hello,
As the title explains I am a brand new paramedic working 911 calls at my Fire Department. In the past I worked 911 but never really did much transporting to hospitals. The last Fire Department I worked at I was an EMT and they did not transport to the hospital. We would show up on scene and just gather vitals and help transfer the patient to the oncoming ambulance that showed up on our scene to transport our patient. Prior to becoming a paramedic I was functioning as an EMT and I would get nervous on calls that required ALS interventions but once the call got going and we were in the back of the ambulance working it started to sub-side because the eyes were not on me. I've only probably being doing legit 911 transport calls as an EMT now for about a year. Just recently about a couple weeks ago is when I obtained my paramedic license and it didn't hit home that I was going to be the leader now and eyes would be put on me. We have had a few close calls that turned out to be nothing. One call coming out as a pregnant female not breathing. When the tones dropped for that call I was beyond nervous. My heart was racing and I was constantly worried about messing up and being looked at as the paramedic that kills people. While I was in school I knew the material. I hate to say this but I barley studied in medic school. I mainly just studied the ALS AHA guidelines and my drugs and of course ECG's. I passed my psychomotor skills on my first try and pass the written exam first try at 80 questions. I feel book smart but when it comes to the street I am not sure if I am that leader that needs to be. I am a very introverted person and its hard for me to have "confidence." I'm a pretty low self esteem person and I am always constantly worried about what I may say wrong or what someone may think of me. I am always worried now about performing a procedure wrong or being completely stumped on something as simple as seeing V-tach on the monitor and forgetting to shock it because of how nervous I would be and get tunnel vision. It really demoralizes me because I really do enjoy the medical field but I do not think I am cut out for the emergency setting. Ever since I obtained my medic I am constantly worried about the tones dropping and it being a serious call such as a bad trauma (gun-shot, MVC, etc), cardiac arrest, pediatric calls, anaphylaxis shock, etc. In a calm setting I can tell you everything I would do for this but in a real life situation I get tunnel vision due to my nerves and always and I mean always second guessing myself. I always feel stupid and think to myself I should have never even passed medic school.
Its always been a goal of mine to go to PA school and specialize in sports medicine more specifically orthopedic. I obtained my paramedic to bridge to nursing because it always me to work full-time but this really doesn't matter for this thread. I'm just not sure if I am cut out for this because all other medics I have talked to say they never got nervous and think its crazy how nervous I actually get. They keep trying to convince me to stay but I believe that is because they just don't want to lose a medic because they would get back on the box. I just don't know. I wish I wouldn't get so damn nervous.
