Personal question

[bassnmedic]

Over the last 18 years there has been many calls and patients that I have dealt with and still have some recollection of. However, I , like Rid believe it's part of the job of telling a patient's family and loved ones that the patient has succumbed to their illness or injury. The spouse that has lived and loved their wife/husband through years of battling Bi-Polar only to come home from work to find them dead from suicide.The 80 year old man whose wife is slowly and painfully dying from Cancer that she has been fighting for 2 years and He tells you "take care of her, we've been married for 63 years and she's all I have", knowing all the while there is nothing that you can do to help her long term. Those are the types of things that stick out to me. I know it's not gross and bloody, but just some thoughts.

Take care,

Todd

[Dustdevil]

Those are the types of things that stick out to me. I know it's not gross and bloody, but just some thoughts.

You raise an excellent point, Todd. This is one of the prime reasons that we have such a low retention rate. Blood and guts is only "cool" for the rookie. Soon, that wears out and all you are left with is the emotional grind. Nobody signs up for that. For this profession to ever stabilise, it will be imperitive for our public image to become more realistic than what it obviously is, as evidenced by this topic. As somebody so astutely mentioned, does anybody ask their doctor what the grossest thing they've seen is? Nope. The medical profession (not to be confused with EMS) is viewed as a PROFESSION that is more academic than action packed. In reality, that's how EMS is too, but that is not the perception.

The day that people choose EMS as a profession because they truly seek the intellectual challenge of diagnosing disease and alleviating suffering is the day that our profession will grow ten-fold. But as long as the majority of the people are attracted simply by the thrill of the siren, the mystique of the blood and guts, and the ability to have it all in two weeks of 8th grade level training, EMS will continue to be $hit.

I am disgusted. :roll:

[windsong]

Graphic = explicit: http://www.emtcity.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.ph...ighlight=#84324

All that picture could be is someone being tomatoed to death, but then again I have a picture from a guy whose mouth got shot off and he's just sitting there, must be some pretty good pain meds.

[Michael]

It's not a guy. It's a shirt. Look at how flat the shoulders are. But it's graphic, and the scarecrow suffered.

[DwayneEMTP]

The day that people choose EMS as a profession because they truly seek the intellectual challenge of diagnosing disease and alleviating suffering is the day that our profession will grow ten-fold. But as long as the majority of the people are attracted simply by the thrill of the siren, the mystique of the blood and guts, and the ability to have it all in two weeks of 8th grade level training, EMS will continue to be $hit.

I am disgusted. :roll:

You know, the farther I get into this it seems that EMS instructors may be as big a part of the problem as the people coming into it...(maybe this has been obvious before, but I'm just now getting it)

I sit next to a kid in A&P lab that is an EMT-I. He just got his cert and is taking A&P (anatomy mostly, in the first semester) because it's required before he gets his Paramedic cert at a local hospital. He's getting it there instead of the college because he doesn't need A&P II there.

He's a nice kid, seems smart, non-wankerish but they convinced him in his Intermediate class that A&P isn't really necessary it's just "the state helping the college make money." He shares my disdain for the people just trying to get through class to get a fire job. (on our last practicum I got 110/116-class ave. 71-our two firemen got 18 & 27/116)

I'm trying to convince him otherwise, but then who am I? Certainly not a paramedic, just some old guy trying to get a degree. I believe if they had instilled in him the need for education he would have stepped up to the plate...he seems to want to be first rate, and is getting a first rate education based on the standards he's been given.

In my Basic class there wasn't really any indication that I didn't know all I needed to know to be a basic...in fact it was often stated that our "academy" taught much more than was expected. I believe that may be true, but all would have been served had the point been made that this was the beginning of an education, not the complete education.

I'm a freak for my education, but mostly because you all have convinced me that if I want to be taken seriously by the people I respect that that is what's needed...but how do the people that don't have you all get that info? Are they running into people elsewhere that make it clear to them that they need to be smart to do this job? That they need to go beyond the educational scope of the people they work with that are already doing this job? And how do we convince them, when they run into people all the time, doing this job, that don't bother to do so?

Out of my class or 22 or so, you can see most only want to get through with a grade high enough to maintain their student money. But there are 6-8 that you can see that really want to be the best at the career they have chosen. But what happens when they find out that the people defining "best" for them have terribly low standards?

It just got me to thinking. Most of the new folks are kids, I think many would do better if they knew better....

Dwayne

[Michael]

but how do the people that don't have you all get that info?

Here's how.

[BW]

If I hadn't spent 19 years in EMS, I would likely ask the same question, cause let's face it, people on the outside of EMS gotta wonder what makes us stay in this field when we HAVE seen lots of the gross and sad stuff!

BW

[windsong]

Why is it when people choose the profession your in over others?

Why did Paul Harrison become a funneral director, because he does his own embalming of all those dear souls who died in your care.

People who are going to become EMR's, EMT's and so on have yet to experience the true nature of what accidents can do to a person.

Robert Jenson age 26 became a doctor because he said the horror in the movies didnt gross him out it was in fact what brought him into this practice of wanting to be a surgeon. All the blood and gore only helped him to improve the truth, he said you can tell whose going to be a somebody and those who wont make it in this profession.

If this isnt eery enough, wait it only gets better come Halloween when the real scary shit comes out to play.

[SingleLovingLife]

I'd have to say it is the human factor that I will remember much longer than the guts & gore.

Arriving at an MVA with the driver DOA, his wife and another passenger agonal. Due to the extensive damage and being unable to extricate all we could do was count respirations while watching them die. Learning the next day an eight year old was left orphaned by the accident.

Holding a patient in my arms while she struggled to answer my questions to determine her A&O status; realizing a few minutes later that she is dying of a massive bleed and her final words were to me instead of her family.

Things like that will stay with you alot longer than rest.