Training Junkie

Ever since hearing “take bloodpressure, if you’re trained to do so”, I’ve wanted to know more.  DAN Dive Medicine for Divers helped, but it wasn’t enough.   In DAN BLSPro, it was “insert an oral airway, if you’re trained to do so”

ARGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!   NEED.   MORE.   TRAINING!!!!

Then, a friend suggested a DMT course.  How could I swing that?  I had to be an EMT-B to start.  All of the local courses wouldn’t fit my schedule.   No problem, my friend said, there’s a combined EMT-B/DMT course in Roatan.   It’s only 6 weeks long.   How to swing 6 weeks?    IV’s, chest tubes, hyperbaric chamber operations…talk about a training “fix.”

Flash forward almost a year.

6 weeks of vacation accrued.   Trip scheduled.  Last few months spent studying.

72 hours before flight:   nerves shot, grumpy, frustrated, pacing (don’t measure my BP right now, thanks).

48 hours:  a bit better, some packing done (including putting the med texts away)  Scotch in-hand.

Nerves still there.  Hmmm…seems like what I went through with the PADI Course Director program.   I’ve prepared, but I’m going to learn and be evaluated.   As James Morgan put it, it’s a life changing experience and a bit of stress is to be expected (sorry for the paraphrase, James).    Can I believe the same advice I give my PADI Instructor Candidates?  The same advice I was given before the CDTC and couldn’t quite take to heart?   Don’t psych your self out.  Riiiiiiight.

Focused history.   Rapid Trauma assessment.  Focused…rapid…detailed…  and I get grief for the acronyms for Open Water Diver, Adventures in Diving, Rescue Diver and Divemaster?!  😉

As it’s been a while since I’ve been “on the other side of the big slate” (being evaluated, that is), I’d like to think this is a great reminder of what my Instructor candidates go through.   [I think James Morgan mentioned something about that, too.   Remember that feeling & empathize.]

Time to take a deep breath, calm down and not rip the head off my darling daughter (who knows her ABCD’S, SAMPLE and how to use an AED!) and amazing wife that tolerates a helluva a lot from me.

Photos and more posts to come.