As PA school quickly approaches I’ve been reflecting a lot on my job as an ED Tech over the last 2.5 years. I’ll probably end up blogging a few times on this topic.

My first official day working in the ED (as opposed to the orientation I underwent the week previous) was on October 18th, 2022. Most of the PA schools I applied to required a minimum of 1000 hours of patient care experience. Obviously more was better. I hit that in under 6 months.

I’m now at over 5,500 hours I believe. I honestly stopped counting awhile ago. In the past 2.5 years I’ve worked a LOT of extra shifts. And for the most part, I’ve loved it. Yeah, there are the shifts where I’ve been given an assignment I wasn’t keen on, or the shifts that I went home from emotionally drained. But overall it’s all been worth it.

At some point I might talk about the specific skills I’ve learned. But the most valuable thing I gained was “my voice.” Anyone who knows me, knows that in general I don’t have a problem sharing my thoughts (as this sometimes self-indulgent blog is proof of). But the difference in my confidence between that first shift and now is stark.

On my first shift, heck my first hundred or more shifts, I often followed the lead of others. There were multiple reasons for this, but basically it came down to two: they had the credentials and they had the experience. Related to this, they didn’t know me so they couldn’t necessarily trust me.

I’m proud to say, that has changed. I still don’t have the credentials, but I now have the experience, and they know me and trust me. One example is the language I’ll use at times. One night a nurse went into one of the trauma bays to grab a bag of saline. Now there are signs that tell folks not to do this, but I’ll be honest, it happens. Two years ago I might not have said anything or if I did, it would have been phrased, “Oh, you took something out of the trauma bay? I’ll make sure to restock it.” This time I said, “Oh you took something out of my trauma bay? I’ll have to make sure to restock it.” Yes, it went from “the trauma bay” to “my trauma bay.” I realized the more I worked on the trauma side of the department that I was taking ownership of things like the trauma bays. I take pride in making sure they’re ready for a trauma. This pride means that a few weeks ago, when in the middle of the trauma a nurse reached for an item and it wasn’t available, my stomach dropped. I felt like I had failed them, even though honestly this was I think the third trauma in a row in that bay and I had had no time to stock. No one blamed me or even looked askance at me. But I still felt like I had failed. So yes, when I’m working in that zone, the bays became “mine” in the sense I took pride in making sure they were setup.

Another example is my interaction with the providers and nurses. When I first started, I would always wait for their cue on what to do outside of the most basic expected skills. Now, I’m far more likely to make a suggestion or be expected to contribute. A few months ago with a patient with several severe bleeding wounds, I was the one that suggested to one of the providers to use a clotting agent we keep in the trauma bay. He wasn’t aware we had it, let alone how well it would work in this case. Fortunately between taking a Stop the Bleed class and being responsible for stocking the trauma bays, I knew it was there. Recently, one of the nurses asked me to show her and a couple of others how to set up a particular piece of equipment based on the manufacturer’s instructions. I’ve earned the trust and confidence of my coworkers. This is an amazing feeling.

I want to add one key note to this. I’ve said before and I’ll say again, one thing I really appreciate about where I work is that it’s a teaching hospital. I basically sat in on a graduate level lecture on pain meds given by one of the attendings to a med student one night (it was a slow night so I had time to stand around and listen.) The attendings, especially a few in particular I work with, encourage questions. This has been invaluable. “Hey why did you do X? Would Y have worked?” I’ve learned a lot this way.

So it turns out, not only was being an ED Tech the right thing for me, I’ve learned a lot and absolutely loved it. Who knows, maybe I’ll write a book someday about it. In the meantime, just one more shift before I head off to PA school.

And as always, my views and thoughts do not reflect those of my employer Albany Med Health System.