Gah...school was so boring.

This woman they had come in to teach us about emergency childbirth was just so droll...and monotone..and uninteresting.

The subject could have been dealt with in an informative, fun manner. But it was not to be. She must have dealt with some pretty dumbass paramedics in the past cause she must have told us 5 times - if the baby is coming out, don't try to push it back in.. Well that's just a great big DUH.

She also talked some about stillbirth, and telling a patient that her baby is dead. Something I'm not all that comfortable with, and really isn't EMT protocol anyway. I think our other teacher "L" gave us the best advice yet when dealing with someone asking - "Is my husband going to die? Am I going to die? Is my baby dead?" is to merely say - "I don't know, but I'm not giving up, and I don't want you to give up either." I think that's a very reassuring statement, even if you know damn well there's no hope. There are people in the hospital that are trained to give bad news.

My class is so funny, even when things are dull, dull, dull they find things to heckle about. And we do heckle, believe me. Not in a mean way, but it loosens things up.

Tonight this woman was talking about delivering the placenta and how the OB kit in the ambulance has a plastic bag to put the placenta in. But she explained that the bag had an opening at the top that was realistically too small to "catch" the placenta with, and so we should use the box that the OB kit comes in to catch the placenta, and then put it in the plastic bag. She mentioned this about 3 times. Put the placenta in the box. Put the placenta in the box. Put the placenta in the box.

Then later, she asked the class "How would you keep bystanders away from an emergency childirth scene?" Of course someone piped up:

"Let them hold the box".