u/Expressregards

Long read apologies in advance. Been a medic for about 3 years running 911 calls for my local area. I teach for the local medic school and Im studying for my FPC. Students and new medics are often referred to me to ask questions about all sorts of stuff. Im incredibly passionate about medicine and I absolutely love being a paramedic and teaching/educating as-well. I recently moved areas and took a job as an ED tech partly out of desperation and also to try to diversify/interact with the flight crew where I would like to get a flight job. The ED tech job is absolutely crushing me. I feel like I have taken 20 steps backwards in my career. I now have an overwhelming desire to prove that I am good at what I do and that I am a smart person. I am hardly practicing to my scope. Critical patients come in and I find myself practicing medicine in my head while I hook up the 12L or start an IV. I love most of the nursing staff and some of them seem to trust me to do small things. I will unintentionally offer unasked for advise because I want to feel like Im good at being a medic again. I have found myself overthinking the things I say to coworkers, Im incredibly anxious and stressed in and out of work. The other day I was hooking up a 12L and nearly had a panic attack just thinking about where I was in my life. This sorta stuff has never happened to me in my entire life. I’ve never been an anxious person. I’ve always been hard on myself, sometimes probably in an unhealthy manor, but this is different. I get good feedback from coworkers and I am starting to make some friends in the ED but every day gets harder with anxiety and overthinking things and trying to find a balance of being a good helpful tech and trying to satisfy the urge to be a paramedic. There are some upsides, I am learning a TON, labs and hospital care and nursing care. My assessments have gotten better and my documentation has gotten better. I really enjoy reading the Docs documentation and looking at images and wow the world of pharmacology I didn’t know existed. It has been refreshing and humbling seeing the whole other side of emergency medicine how much more I have to learn. That said, Im really struggling in this stage in my career and I have no idea what to do. I have been trying to take time for myself and do the hobbies I love which helps a lot. I study for my exam often, but its becoming very difficult to focus because I start spiraling. I have an application in for the local flight agency as a PRN flight medic , (full time there is my dream job), but they wont by interviewing till August, and if I got the job I wouldn’t start till probably early September. This is mostly just a vent on Reddit because I don’t have anyone to really share this with and to cast out my situation to the audience to see if anyone has any advise. Im sorry for the log rant, just writing this out has been helpful. Thank you so much for reading if you did.