Are You a Healer or a Flesh Mechanic?

[firetender]

I'm curious how you view yourselves.

The initial drive to enter the field, I'll hazard to guess for most in healthcare professions, comes from a "heart-centered" space. Most of us enter EMS with a desire to help others in need by being an agent of healing -- a healer, if you will.

We get involved because we do want to contribute to the health and well-being of people. Training yourself to be able to release someone from the jaws of death comes from an essentially visceral drive. The one thing we share in common is we only want to live.

Then, we find ourselves in this immensely technical world filled with very challenging human beings who so often don't really want the help we're offering. We are trained to rely on our heads and discouraged from experiencing ourselves emotionally, and find a good chunk of our psychic time is spent amidst protocols, trainings, and the delivery of services far afield from saving the lives of human beings.

Is becoming a Flesh Mechanic a necessary step to becoming proficient in this profession? Must you leave naiive notions of being a healer behind in order to better serve the people? Or can you maintain a sense of yourself as being one of a lineage stretching back in time who used their powers to effect healing transformation?

 

[Onceamedic]

Great question.. I am now and have always been and always will be a healer... Paramedicine allows me different tools and different opportunities to be a healer, but that is what I do.

 

[BossyCow]

I would have to opt for 'none of the above'. I see what I do as interim, not actual 'healing'. I reassure, stabilize, may ease symptoms, comfort and often just witness the completion of a life. I take people to those who heal them.

 

[RedZone]

I like this question. It really tells a lot about your ethics by thinking this way. Ethical philosphy is pretty complex and interesting.... but usually taken for granted.

For me, I would say I probably started out more on the "flesh mechanic" side of the spectrum. I was 18, had not a clue about EMS, and no intention of making this into my career.

Gradually, very gradually I may add, I moved more towards the "healer" side of the spectrum. I'm less of a "trauma junkie" now, and find much more "excitement" in challenging situations. Quite often, these are the medical calls. There is little decision to be made in trauma situations other than: ABCs and how fast can I get him to proper definitive care without causing additional injuries.

Bossycow brings up a good point, but I think slightly differently. Maybe in the trauma situations... Bossy's description causes for such feelings. But extensive experience with medical calls allows me to see myself more as: an important part of the interdisciplinary network of health professionals required to heal during a time of crisis.

 

[BossyCow]

My calls are primarily medical. When I get trauma, its usually pretty extreme because around here the minor broken bones are duct taped and driven to the ER by a couple of buddies.

Yes I see myself as part of the healing process, but as BLS only there are few cases where I actually heal. I think perhaps sparking someone or glucose paste to a diabetic, other than that, this person needs more than I have on my rig.

This is how I see myself and my role in EMS, not a judgement about EMS in general. I have worked with others who have a very different slant on it.