First Day on the Job

I am currently watching an episode of Lost from March. I have been so busy that I have not been able to watch a one hour TV show for almost a month. Most of my time has been spent finishing presentations, studying for tests, and driving back and forth from my house. Luckily, I am currently entering my last week of classes for the semester, the only thing that remains it to take the finals in a week. It is strange that as I have become older, I look forward to summer less and less. I guess it is because I am expecting to be just as busy as I am during the school year. This summer I am taking an MCAT prep course so that I can take the exam the beginning of Fall semester. This combined with work will undoubtedly keep me occupied for summer in its entirety. As to work, I was recently hired by an event standby company as an EMT, and I had my training session today.

The training session occurred at an extremely large Latino event Downtown. I expected that with half a million people there would be a large amount of injuries or illness, but surprisingly I only saw about 4 or 5 patients in the span of 5 hours. A few were actually transported to the hospital whereas the others were given first aid and released. Being that this was my first day, I was interested to learn more about working in the healthcare field and what types of people I would encounter. As I expected, I was the only female healthcare provider, as the EMT's, paramedics and firefighters were completely male. The only other female in uniform I saw was a police officer. This of course created a strange dynamic, as all of the males had a way of joking around and talking to each other that was very...masculine. It was strange to be standing in a group of 8 people and be about a foot shorter than everyone else. Of course, being a female does have its advantages in the field, as female patients tend to want to talk to other females. I was also able to use my Spanish with a few of the people we saw, which was very helpful as I was given the opportunity to do more than just observe on my first day. I still need to work on charting, as this was not included in any training I have received, but overall I think the first day went rather smoothly. I am looking forward to finding out if I need to do any more training sessions or if I can start signing up for shifts. I would prefer, of course, to work with other people the first few times, as I am still relatively inexperienced. I think this opportunity will allow me to see healthcare from a different perspective. I am planning to work for a 911 response ambulance in the near future, and I am hoping that this job will get my foot in the door for jobs with more responsibility and independence.