Every year, I have to undergo 8 hours of coursework in order to renew my professional license every two years. Last year, I lucked out, having scheduled the class for February, a month before the world stopped. This year, I had to apply in advance and pay by credit/debit card, rather than the show up the day of the class and pay cash model of the Before Times. As you can imagine, class size is now limited.
I have had the same instructor for the past three or four years, and he is a good guy. He begins the class by telling us, "Don't complain about eight hours of class every year, beauticians need to attend one thousand hours of class before they can get licensed." I typically reply in half-joking fashion, "But a beautician can really mess somebody up."
He then goes on to delineate his two main rules: "Treat everyone the way you would want your mother to be treated, and if you don't write it down, it didn't happen." I always keep a pocket-sized pad in the bag I bring to work.
He's also a stickler for telling us about the dangers of blood-borne pathogens, and I have to say that everything he's talked about has had applications during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was all about the hand-washing before it was ubiquitous, and adjured us to carry hand sanitizer on our persons, and to don mask and gloves if it were necessary to touch someone who didn't look well. Yeah, he was right about pretty much everything. Whenever he'd announce the bloodborne pathogen curriculum, I'd always quip, "This is the content we all crave." I'm going to specifically thank him for this thorough coverage if he teaches this afternoon.
Right now, I am waiting for a coworker to come to my neck of the woods, so we can carpool to the school in Mount Vernon, one town over from my beloved Yonkers. We'll probably go back next February, as his license expires in April, and it's wise to give NY State a couple of months to get the paperwork in order. The curriculum doesn't vary, we cover the same topics every year, but it's useful stuff, especially when it can help you avoid contagion, infection, and death. Next year, I will thank our teacher profusely again... his words were, in the context of two back-to-back plague years, words to live by.
Before Covid made me retire early from working as a Dental Hygienist, every 2 years part of the continuing education requirements included taking a Basic Life Support class so we'd have practice and a system for dealing with a patient having an emergency in the office. We even used it a couple of times, but it was the week spent getting certified (now expired) as a Wilderness First Responder that really opened my eyes. It helped me recognize that a patient very likely had a DVT in his calf and I pushed him hard to go to the VA immediately. He called later to tell the office that the VA doc said I'd saved him from a likely fatal stroke; it felt great to have truly helped someone.
ReplyDeleteI got the WFR certification because we had come across a couple of serious back country accidents in a short time and I knew I needed more training to deal with the situations we'd come across. Unfortunately every accident/heart attack I've ben involved in since were fatalities that there was no hope of changing that outcome. Still, I always carry a disposable CPR mask and two sets of gloves no matter where I am or what I am doing because you just never know.
Thank you, StringOnAStick.
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for our blog host, but I'm pretty sure he would agree.
Thank you again for being a responsible person.