"So your an EMT/Paramedic what do you make?"

[ERDoc]

I don't think you are offending anyone (at least in this thread) but we are what we are and we are trying to show you that. Every job has their important role in society so why we glamorize one over the other is beyond me (with the exception of the military, they deserve all the glory and then some). Granted, Bill Johnson CPA wouldn't make as good a TV show as Trauma, Life in the ER does but CPAs are just as important as MDs, EMTs and FFs.

[MedicDelta]

Agreed military is a special case. For me I've always had a high respect for military, emergency services and healthcare. That's never gonna change.

[Just Plain Ruff]

Again, thanks for the accolades MD, but I've never once felt like a hero, not even after delivering a baby on a trailer park couch or saving the child from the cardiac arrest.

I do my job plain and simple and that's all it's ever been about.

What I'd like to see is in 5 years you come back here and tell us what you have learned from this group of fine people and how they have made you a better provider.

Come back and tell us in a couple of years, after you've been a quality poster, the pearls and pitfalls that you have learned from others in your field and the pillars of the EMS community that you have had the pleasure to work with .

I would also like for you to take away from the horrible providers and the horrible calls, lessons learned that can help you be a better provider by not becoming one of those horrible providers and that you ahve taken to heart what you have seen and learned from the horrible calls that you will see.

If you learn every day, if you take advice where it's offered and you freely give advice in return, it you take the advice given and take the advice that you would give out yourself, then you have learned a great deal.

If you ever begin to call elderly patients gomers or transfers "bullshit" calls, then you haven't learned a thing. If you call the frequent flyers and the drug seekers nasty names then you have not learned anything.

It's up to you to take a compilation of all that you learn and put it in your brain to become the best provider that you can be.

And the minute that you stop learning something, it's time to start looking for another career or line of work because EMS and medicine overall is always changing and if you stop learning, you become stagnant and if you let it stop for long, you become a dead provider.

Just my 2 cents.

[ERDoc]

the drug seekers nasty names then you have not learned anything.

Calling them fucktards is the only exception, correct?

[Just Plain Ruff]

Calling them fucktards is the only exception, correct?

Yes, that's the exception but only if you have MD after your name which in all reality those initials in your case means "major dickhead" ha ha just kidding.

[ERDoc]

You say such sweet things Ruff.

[scubanurse]

But drug seekers are job security doc!

[ERDoc]

Yeah, as if they pay their bills. Alcohol, testosterone and stupidity are job security and they are usually bundled together.

[scubanurse]

Yeah but if no one needed pain meds it would take me 5 minutes to pass meds!

[MedicNorth]

Hm... What do I make?

Well, I make a pretty good living doing something I enjoy. I make a damned good lasagna at the station when the tones leave me time to get it done. I make a few people smile with my lame jokes in some tough situations. I make fun of people who are in this business and expect hero treatment.

Its a job - an excellent fulfilling one, in spite of the gross parts and the sad parts and the horrible parts.

But frankly, I appreciate the sentiments expressed by non-EMS people who repost things like MedicDelta did - not for accuracy, but for seeing that our service is valuable.

Its funny, we complain bitterly about the positive press that Fire and Police get, whine when we are left out of hero lists after a tough multi-division incidents, bitch and complain about being underpaid and undervalued, and then crap on people who are making an effort to show some appreciation.

Whackers are people who are in this job for the wrong reasons. Lets not get them mixed up with people who are outside our vocation but sending positive things our way.

Thank you for the thoughts, MedicDelta

Edited March 6, 2014 by MedicNorth