New Years Finishing off and PHTLS

Last week we had a quite week. We went on a trip to Jerusalem, to visit Yad Va'shem and had a talk with a man whom was a former medic. We also spent the week reviewing for our final tests. WE had a nice New Years on base and enjoyed the final Shabbat we would be spending together as a group.

Then, this week was our last unofficial week in Course Hovshem (Medics).

To start the week off, on Sunday we brushed up on all of our skills (such as opening up a vein at night, attaching a line and tying it down, and surgical operations.)

On Monday we started our O.S.C.E. An OSCE is a final practical test, where we must show to our commanders that we can live up to the standard that we were taught. For example, in our surgery OSCE, we must show our commanders that we know how to tie down an intubation tube to a person, without it falling out. Another example was during our CPR OSCE, we had to show our commanders that we know how to perform CPR correctly and that if needed, we could perform the task at hand.

On Tuesday we had our final test on all sort of trauma a person can go through. The test included trauma to the chest, stomach, head, broken bones and other trauma incidents that we can find in our "new" line of work.

Then on Wednesday and Thursday, we had a PHTLS (Pre-Hospital Trauma Life Support). This is a brand new course that was started a few months ago. The course is meant to teach us how to respond to incidents, in more of a civilian background. For example, we learned how to treat people who have suffered a car crash and other civilian accidents. The purpose of the course was to teach us how to look at things through the eyes of a regular EMT, instead of an army medic. While the differences are small, they are a few changes that we had to learn. For example, back boarding and morphine have two different criteria for when we apply it or when we put someone on a backboard.

While the course was hard (12 hours a day of strait learning and very short breaks) it was a lot of fun and interesting to see the differences between the military medics and a regular EMT.

As a bonus for completing the course (and hopefully passing) I will receive a certificate which is good for everywhere in the world. It will also let me work as a medic and apply for a job as an EMT back home in the states.

This week, will be our last technical week. While we will not be doing much, it will be sad to see people go back to their units. However as in most times in life, while one door is closing, another will reopen up soon I hope.