As a newbie I can't say I've got much wisdom to offer, but I'd like to share an early EMT experience that ultimately made me much wiser. Sorry if this post is too long.
I am a brand new EMT, just certified last August. I found A&P fascinating, was interested in healthcare, and wanted to work outside, so I started down this path in the hopes of becoming a career paramedic. I can't say I was ever really drawn to the gore and promises of "heroism," at least not at first. But as my EMT class progressed, and as I heard more and more war stories from veteran medics, I really started thinking, "Hey, this is kind of a badass job." When we did practice scenarios in class, we often pretended to be responding to extreme situations - lots of GSW's, serious MVA's, and tricky "scene safety" scenarios involving drug houses and nightclubs. Though much of this was tempered by conversations with actual EMT's in the field about transferring dialysis patients and running syncope calls, I nonetheless found myself feeling more and more like a future action hero when I went to class.
When it came time for me to do the first of my few required "clinical experience" shifts in the local emergency department, I was foolishly hoping for a cardiac arrest to come into the trauma bay. You can't do much in the hospital as an EMT student, but you can do chest compressions, and I wanted my chance to play the hero. By this point, I knew many of the medics working that night and as they brought in patients I kept jokingly asking them to bring me a cardiac arrest (just so you know, I'm cringing as I write this.) Codes are "good calls," and I wanted to see a "good call." At around 5:00 AM a guy in cardiac arrest following three gunshot wounds to the chest came in, and I had my chance. In between my compressions the trauma doc tried needle decompression; it was all very bloody, and the doc called his death within a few short minutes. I felt stupidly satisfied that I had seen a "good trauma."
No sooner had I taken my gloves off than I heard another arrest coming in, this time to a pediatric bay. A mother had woken up to find her 6 year old son in cardiac arrest in bed. I rushed to the bay, but it became instantly clear that this was no place for an EMT student to get "hands-on" experience, so I just watched the situation unfold. They worked the kid for maybe 10 minutes before they had to call it. As I watched, I didn't see any "heroes" defending this boy from the reaper. Rather, I saw a highly skilled team of professionals working together and doing their job. There was no bravado, no magic, and no drama, save the real-world drama of comforting a grieving parent.
I cannot tell you how instantaneously I realized what a supreme a**hole I had been for hoping someone would go into cardiac arrest, just so that I could feel like a big deal. That man whose gore I thought provided a "cool experience" had a family too. This, more than most anything from my EMT class, was my real learning experience. After that I realized that yes, there is drama in the field of EMS. There is in fact plenty of real world drama - enough to make it so that there should be no room for dramatic EMS providers, no room for self-centered, wannabe heroes.
I think EMT education has a lot to do with how this job is perceived by newbies and by the public. It can be a dangerous job, so EMT classes (or at least mine) seem to overemphasize the danger, to the point where one assumes that you must be some sort of action hero to do the work. I think this mentality can be reversed through more actual experience in the field, more opportunities to see what the day-to-day job is really like. I also think EMT classes should have students spend more "experience" hours in places that care for the elderly (be it nursing homes or acute care in the hospital), because EMT's spend far more time responding to elderly patients with chronic conditions than severe traumas.
Once I got my first EMT job working a wheelchair van I believe I saw much more of what the prehospital environment is like in real life, though I still have a hell of a lot to learn. Now that I've gotten over my whacker phase, I hope to keep maturing into a healthcare provider. Funny thing is, I found I really like the patient interactions I have on the wheelchair van, and many times when I've mentioned that to other EMS folks, they'll say, "Maybe you should think about nursing school..."
! Thank you for sharing. This is the kind of post I feel ALL newcomers should read. And, no, it wasn't too long.
