OCTOBER CHECK-IN
Monthly community service hours completed: 4 Cumulative semester service hours completed: 4 The month of October has been an intense but rewarding academic adventure. I found it especially engaging to learn about cardiovascular and ANS drugs, given how much experience I had with them from my time on the ambulance. Unfortunately, around 90% of the patients I transported were over the age of 60 and had a history of heart problems. Among these patients, metoprolol and atorvastatin appeared on nearly every medication list. I often find myself reflecting on my time in EMS and the interactions I had with those patients, if I had the knowledge I’ve gained just this month, perhaps my treatments or transports would have been different. I now know that metoprolol is a beta blocker and atorvastatin is a hypolipidemic, but I can’t help but laugh when I think back on all the embarrassing reports I gave attending physicians in the emergency department and I d...