Field internship begins

My 255+ hour field internship began yesterday with a relatively low-key fourteen-hour shift. We took two 911 calls and a "take-home" transfer, where the patient goes home rather than to another medical facility. My preceptor allowed me to actively participate in patient care; I operated the cardiac monitor, administered medication and drew blood, among other things. There's plenty to do before I'm ready to take to the streets as a full-fledged paramedic, but it's exciting to have my field internship underway.

In the classroom, International Trauma Life Support is moving along at a healthy clip. We've been spending a lot of time in the lab, which has been great, with days of classroom lectures interspersed to keep things interesting (though the opposite is often true). A number of the skills are holdovers from the EMT-Basic curriculum with one or two advanced procedures appended. Others, such as intubation of the trauma patient and needle chest decompression, are paramedic-only skills.

Between class, clinical and work, I've seen an unfortunate decline in my reading time. I finished The Adventures of Tom Sawyer a week and a half ago, and even though The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not significantly longer, I've yet to make much of a dent in it. Hoping to play some serious catch-up over spring break . . .

In other news, the Internet Movie Database reports that a movie version of Tom Clancy's 1993 novel Without Remorse. No confirmed word yet on who will play protagonist John Kelly / John Clark.