My apologies if this is long, but I'm just so tired of my paramedic program. I had some personal issues arise that caused a delay in finishing the last 4 rounds of my in hospital clinicals and starting my ambulance ride time. My program uses a platform called platinum education, this is the first year my program has used it, and they've had a ton of confusion surrounding how to navigate/document clinicals in it. When doing my hospital time you just selected what shifts at what facility and it's added to your log so you can document skills and patient contacts. Well as I started later than my classmates, there was no shifts listed in platinum at all. I emailed my teachers multiple times about this and asking if I was doing something incorrectly on my end. Well my teachers finally got back to me and CC'd me in an email with a local fire department that I could do my ride time with.

I scheduled what I could with their coordinator and never heard anything back from my school, so I assumed everything was set up. Well, while finishing a call I and the FF that was precepting me noticed dried blood on one of the stretcher seatbelts, so when we got to station we stripped the stretcher, soaked in chlorhexidine, and as I wiped it down with a towel while wearing gloves. I suddenly felt a pin prick as I wiped the crease of the stretcher, turns out there was tons of shards of glass caught in it and it had cut me through my gloves. No one has any clue where or how long they've been there. The shards looked clean and the whole thing was drenched with disinfectant beforehand, so the possibility of any sort of disease transmission is super low. However, I still reported it immediately to my instructor and the on sight fire supervisor.

Filled out a report, even had a witness to the whole thing. Suddenly no one knew what to do next. The FF department was unsure who takes liability and had no policy in place for a sharps exposure to a student. My school was completely radio silent again. I decided to just take myself to the ED after the shift to get screened just to make sure I didn't end up with Hep C.

So far all my labs are normal, I have another follow up in 6 weeks, and the ED confirmed my risk was extremely low. I got discharged and was given a state form clearing me for clinicals and my regular job as an EMT. After I sent this over, my instructor is now claiming that the shift I scheduled with the FF department was not recorded in platinum beforehand, therefore I was not actually acting as a student for them, and that they will not take any responsibility for any potential injuries or infections I could have contracted.

I emailed back with the fact nothing was even in platinum for me to add, that he was CC'd in when I scheduled these shift, and trying to make him clarify how I couldn't have been acting in a student capacity. He stated this was relayed in our class briefing at the end of the year (it wasn't, but I don't know how to prove that.)

My school is now back to radio silence, and the FF department took me off a few of my schedule shifts with them and gave me options, all of shifts I can't work due to my regular job schedule.

I'm just so done with this, as long as my next follow up is normal, I don't care about paying for my own screening, but I am worried that my school might be trying to retaliate against me with the FF department suddenly taking me off scheduled shifts. I just want to finish my hours and be done, but not sure if escalation with a lawyer is necessary.