Needlestick injuries: a paramedic's perspective.

PARAMEDICS AND ED PERSONNEL FACE similar risks for blood exposures. They are both confronted by the unpredictability of the patient’s condition, and must perform a daunting variety of tasks under intense pressure. I experienced those risks firsthand as a paramedic in rural West Virginia for four years. My interest in becoming a paramedic started as a concern for my youngest daughter, who seemed to choke on everything. I had taken the American Red Cross First Aid class, but wanted to do more. So I trained as an emergency medical technician: I took the basic course to qualify for EMT-A. After volunteering with a squad, I continued my training and took the EMT-P class to become a paramedic. That commitment required eight hours of classes per week for nine months, plus eight to twelve hours of rotations per week in a local hospital for eight months. As paramedic students, we spent over one-third of our rotations Needlestick Injuries: A Paramedic’s Perspective