I showed up to the testing center in Charlestown 40 minutes early for my exam. After one last read through of my study material in my car, I made my way inside. I signed in, had my photo taken, and was told to sit at desk #5.

I patiently read through the tutorial and began my test. 120 minutes to answer 100 questions.

30 minutes later I was finished. The proctor printed out a score sheet and handed it to me while saying, “ya done good.” He then printed out my identification and said I could leave.

I thanked him and left, doing my best to contain how happy I was to be finished with everything.

Just got a letter in the mail telling me I passed the first half of my Massachusetts EMT exam that I took 3 weeks ago. I just got off the phone with the scheduling center and have scheduled the second half of my certification exam for this Wednesday. If everything goes well, I’ll be a certified EMT on Wednesday at around 11:30AM.

The EMT-Basic course I was taking ended a few weeks ago. Got my scores back from the final exams and was happy to hear I did better than I thought I would. Now I just have to pass the state exams and I’ll be a certified EMT. I take the practical exam on February 16th (yes, 3 days before my surgery).

We finally had our ambulance ride-alongs. I rode on Saturday from midnight until 8AM Sunday. We got called for a woman in labor, a child that got his wrist stuck in a pair of handcuffs, a stroke, a shortness of breath, an overdose, and a man with pancreatitus. They usually get twice as many calls, but I thought it was a nice variety.

Next weekend I’ll be spending the night observing in the emergency department at Boston Medical Center. Hopefully it will be a good experience and I’ll learn some things.

The Celtics, Bruins, Red Sox, and Patriots games. I got health insurance for the first time since college! I built some bookshelves and then built a new kitchen. Jennie’s wedding. Jaynemarie’s wedding. Topsfield Fair and the racing pigs.

In 2007 I had 8 appointments with my orthopedic surgeon at BMC, an appointment with a surgeon in NYC, 1 MRI, 6 sets of X-rays, a bone density exam, an operation to take the hardware out of my leg, Read more…

One of my favorite blogs is TS‘s Other people’s emergencies: Random thoughts of an urban paramedic. He’s been a paramedic for Boston EMS for 20-some years and has some excellent stories to tell. People often give him a hard time, but I like to think of TS’s writing not as ranting but as him just telling his side of the story. One of my favorites is It’s All About the Doctor…

EMTs and paramedics save lives. Sometimes they get appropriate credit for this. Often, though, patients and their families can’t think back beyond what happened in the emergency department. Even when someone gets resuscitated in the field, it is the doctor and the nurse and the hospital who get all the praise. In the words of a longtime Calgary paramedic Read more…