Routine

A big part of my job as a Paramedic involves transporting patients from our small hospital in northern New Hampshire to some of the bigger specialty hospitals . It's just something we have to do whenever a patient has a particular health issue or major trauma.

The three main hospitals we transfer people to are in Hanover NH, Manchester NH, and Portland Maine. In a weird coincidence, it takes about two hours and fifteen minutes to drive to any of those three locations from our neck of the woods in Berlin NH.

At my level as a Paramedic, I'm usually in the back attending to the patient while my EMT-Basic or EMT-Intermediate partners drive, depending on the severity. One example: I usually get to drive if it's a psychiatric transfer, since they just need the stable environment and no real life saving meds handy.

My routine for transfers is pretty standard. We meet the patient after getting all our info and paperwork set by the Doctors and Nurses, get the patient loaded on our stretcher (gurney), whatever you wanna call it. Then we'll make sure we have all Intravenous pumps with us if we're providing fluids and medication along the ride. Portable oxygen. Sometimes our portable cardiac monitors we'll set up to our patient before or after they're on our stretcher.

Then once we have the patient loaded in our truck, I'll get a first set of vitals signs, which include pulse, respirations, blood pressure and an oxygen saturation percentage. If the patient is attached to our monitor I'll make note of the rhythm , and then we're on  the road.

At this time I usually talk to the patient while going over their medical history in the packet of info that's going to the other hospital. I'll make notes for the patient's medication, allergies, medical history and what led up to our little ride out of town. I alway like looking in these packets, since they give me all the info I need, particularly what I can and can not give my patient for the ride, and what to keep an eye on.

Once I'm satisfied with what I've written down, I'll take vitals signs periodically and tend to my patients needs as needed. a lot of times our patients can sleep, watch something on our portable dvd player, or converse with us. I've had transfers where I've barely spoken to a patient, mainly because it was apparent they did not want to talk to me. Then there are others where we'll talk non-stop for a couple of hours. It can be pretty cool to learn about someone for the short time you're caring for them.

My first transfer, an elderly gentleman was telling me about his time as a soldier in WWII; fascinating stories. There've been other times where it was easy to connect the dots on "who i know that knows them" conversations. In a small town of 10,000, everybody almost knows everybody.

A lot of times people will be nervous. Can't blame them, they are in an ambulance after all. We do what we can to reassure them that the places we're bringing them to have some of the best specialists in their field.

Once we get our patient to their destination, we get our paperwork squared away with the Doctors and Nurses that are taking over care. We say our goodbyes, wish them the best, then put our ambulance back together for the next ride. Now we're usually over two hours away from home, and we'll go get some grub. Depending on the time of day, we usually have options. Thankfully most of the places we go there's usually a place we know of that's open 24/7. Truckstops are good for that! We get an amount we're allowed to put on our company credit card for a meal (thanks' boss!) and we're set for the ride back , particularly if we got some good java in us.

On the ride back, it's good to have a partner that isn't an asshole. There's one guy I work with who can turn into the whiniest little child in the world. "We're all going to hell, and so's the world, rabble rabble rabble". While this can be annoying, there are various ways to play mind games with curmudgeon partners like this. I'll bring up some of those stories another time.

Usually my partner and I can listen to some tunes or podcasts we agree on. Sometimes one of us will try and get some sleep, in case whichever one of us driving gets tired later (varying on time of night/morning).

After we get back to town, we drop off any equipment we borrowed from the hospital, gas up the ambulance, then go back and wash our trucks and do our paperwork. All in all, about 7 hours usually from start to finish of a transfer. Just part of the job for us north country ambulance monkeys.