"You're too smart for EMS"

[chbare]

This notion is not unique to EMS however. I've had many people ask me when I was going to move beyond nursing. In addition, I was ridiculed by some of my nursing colleagues when I was a respiratory therapy student for doing something "under" nursing. Of course I don't remember having chemistry and physics requirements prior to beginning nursing school. In any event, there exists pretentiousness and ignorance among all areas of human existence. We've all made pretentious and uneducated statements about somebody or a group of people based on ignorance and pre-conceived bias. True professionals strive to learn from past mistakes however. IMHO of course.

[HERBIE1]

There is no way to change the opinions of some people. You could be the best damn EMS provider on the planet but someone will still find fault with what you do, or demean your profession. Not a damn thing you can do about it, and no amount of arguing, cajoling, or convincing will change their minds.

I have found that many people WILL get it- whether they be doctors, nurses, RT's, unit clerks, or even the housekeeping staff. Folks usually know who the "good ones" are- either by observation of their clinical skills, listening to them speak, their demeanor, their professionalism, their appearance, or simply their interactions with patients, staff, and family members.

All you can do is the best you know how, and always strive to be better the next time.

Or- if all else fails, I guess there is always the snarky approach. Simply turn the tables and ask them why they have not advanced beyond being an ER nurse or respiratory therapist.

[rock_shoes]

fakingpatience I know exactly how you feel. I received similar comments during my clinical placements over the last two years. I had an answer for them that some here probably aren't going to like.

I will be moving on from EMS at some point in the relatively near future. I will be completing a Bachelor of Health Science from my my paramedic education (about 2 semesters of credits left to go) and applying to medical school. I never stopped enjoying what I do as an EMS provider. I realised that the only way I can effectively improve EMS on a grand scale is for me to move beyond what's currently possible for EMS providers from an education standpoint. I also realised that I simply wanted more; more education, more freedom in developing my own treatment plans, more involved patient interactions, more practice specialty options, more everything. Paramedicine gave me a taste and I want more.

You might find the same, you might find EMS is where you want to stay. Be open to either.

[Kiwiology]

I'm surprised to hear that from somebody in Canada but each to their own I guess

[Bieber]

Speaking of this topic, I just read this article from JEMS today that touches on educational levels and longevity of a career in EMS.

http://www.jems.com/article/training/will-you-stay-or-go-are-high-p

[paramedicmike]

That article was pretty much a waste of bandwidth. They used all that space to say, essentially, that while they have no way to reasonably study the claim they can unreasonably say that "high performing providers" aren't leaving EMS.

I don't know if there really is a way to accurately measure who stays, who leaves and any reasons given for leaving the industry. It would make a fascinating study, no doubt.

[Bieber]

I'm not sure that I would say making note of our data collection shortfalls was a waste of bandwidth, Mike. Nobody ever thought to start saving data until we realized that we lacked enough of it to make much of any claims about anything in EMS. If it gets people motivated to start looking into this matter, it may help us identify what changes need to be made to make EMS more appealing to potential employees and aid employers in figuring out how to boost retention within their own services.

[paramedicmike]

This isn't a matter of poor data collection. Well, ok. In a sense it is a matter of poor data collection. When answering the question, though, the authors would've been better served by saying "our data collection is poor because we never thought to look at this until now" instead of a long winded article that says "we have no means to study this because our data collection is poor but we're going to go ahead and pull this out of our arse anyway even though we have absolutely no way to verify anything we're saying".

[island emt]

The other problem here is that we've created a whole new employment enterprise of data gathering weenies in EMS. Every state has them and most of the larger EMS systems do also. These may or may not actually be street seasoned providers, & their whole job is to produce numbers. They can produce all kinds of pretty spreadsheets and colorful charts that in reality have little to do with providing quality care to our customers.

One large alphabet company started this "profession" back in the early 80's, and used their spreadsheets to predict where the next calls would come from.

Unfortunately they were wrong 90% of the time, so their crews moved from one convenience store parking lot to the next in order to keep "big brother " happy with their fleet postings

.Instead of responding from fixed base locations, they created a system where crews are forced to sit on street corners in their trucks and actually spend more time driving from one post to the next than they do providing Pt care. This was just a way of reducing the number of crews & trucks on duty and is a really crappy way to spend a shift .

[DFIB]

You are too smart for EMS. After a little thought, I'm calling BS on this statement. Let's think about this for a second. Unless our OP is a genius the idea implies that only the EMS profession only deserves dumb people or somehow mentally disadvantaged individuals. Some are considered "too smart" because they can remember the things we read in a book and find a practical application for me. Are they too smart because they can eloquently express a treatment idea?

EMS is full of smart people that choose EMS because it is their bent and desire to do so. I have a friend that spent a lifetime being an incredibly successful litigator and attorney who got a taste of EMS and has been doing it for years.

There are plenty of smart crazy smart providers. The profession itself has a way of weeding out the ones that are not.

Edited May 15, 2012 by DFIB