#emt training

I’m already feeling pretty overwhelmed and honestly scared.

As a child in catholic high school I was taught that the serpent on the stick that's used in medicine was a reference to Moses's Brazen Serpent in the book of Numbers (Numbers 21:4-8). As an atheist adult reading my EMT textbook, it says "The serpent and staff in the symbol portray the staff of Asclepius, an ancient Greek god of medicine."

This might not be applicable to you, but it is important to recognize that each person's culture has ways of making you believe that the culture is much broader in scope than it actually is. Perhaps it was at one point, as is the case with the Catholic culture, but your culture might not have been.

At the end of the day, your specific interpretation of your specific culture is always going to include beliefs that those around you have different interpretations of, even if they share the culture as a whole! It's easy to believe that those that share your exact interpretation are much more numerous, and to therefore violently reject those that are even slightly different from you as fringe, and patently false since everyone else agrees with you.

How do you cope with tough calls?

What would you tell the new kid at the station how to handle it?

I was <checks notes> sitting in the passenger seat of a car. And now my arm is fucked. Like, I should put it in a sling. Can't lift it higher than shoulder height.

I don't remember reaching into the backseat or messing with anything overhead. Just... sitting there.