Seems like there are new challenges every week in EMS. Or at least for me, since I am still getting the feel for how this business runs!
Yup. You have to have a thick skin.
Be polite and professional, find the rumor-starter and call her out.
I was on one of my paramedic clinicals, (which is the neighboring district to where I work) Well they did nothing but bad mouth my district to me right in front of my face (which whatever, everyone has there opinions, but what was said; someone could have taken a great deal of offense to it)
Welcome to EMS!
Lots of :censored::censored::censored::censored:-starters in the EMS/FF Field. My instructor is quite the arrogant ***, he'd admit it himself, but he's also a freaking
stellar paramedic. How do people usually talk about him? "Oh well he's kind of an :censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored::censored:. But DAMN is he a good medic!"
While I'm not advocating arrogance, or any other character "flaws", perhaps it's best to just be the best damn EMT-b/medic student you can be and let your skills speak for themselves. When you command the respect of your co-workers, they'll be less likely to talk about you behind your back and, even if they do, people won't believe them or care.
Be professional, be polite, be competent. Be the person that ALWAYS has the squared away ambulance. Be the first person washing the ambulance after a call.
Try to avoid situations where allegations can come into play. If some wife specifically has an issue with you and brings it up a few times, talk to her one on one, maybe even with her husband present, and let them know what' going on and how you feel. Maybe even be a little bit of a :censored::censored::censored::censored::censored: about it if you must.
And they were doing a lot of bad mouthing a very good medic friend of my, WHO is the training officer for this district. He is an AWESOME medic, and wants things done right and by the book. If you dont do that, he will tell ya.
Then let
him do that. I volunteer at one company but do training and such with two others. They
ALL talk trash about each other professionally, mostly in a joking manner, and lots of them talk trash about other medics or FF's or EMT-b's. I
NEVER agree,
NEVER engage in the behavior and
NEVER tell the talked-about individual what was said. Why? Because I'm not there to facilitate interpersonal relationships, I'm there to be the best life-saver or pain-reducer that I can be.
So I called him AS A FRIEND to let him know that he could not trust anyone who he works with, cause they where all talking smack on him..
BAD IDEA
Well he had me write something out with quotations to him so he could make a record of what these medics where doing or saying while they were suppose to be teaching a student (me).
BAD IDEA.
Did they
TEACH you something?
I was told when I was very young that
everyone can be a teacher. The junkie on the street? FANTASTIC TEACHER! They taught me that I don't want to be some worthless heroin monkey and they taught me that lesson better than ten thousand DARE programs could have ever hoped! Those medics that do nothing but trash talk, in front of patients even, are TEACHING you how to be unprofessional, they're TEACHING you poor patient care and they're TEACHING you what to
not be. FOLLOW THEIR TEACHINGS! When you see them doing something you'd disagree with, note it, ask them casually about it after the call (mixed in with your other questions about the call so it doesn't sound accusatory) and remember to ask the competent medic what he feels about
THE SITUATION HYPOTHETICALLY, don't ask him via a complaint or a "Tell me I'm right when I saw these medics screwing up" mentality.
If you feel that
PATIENT CARE was applied against state protocols, medical orders or local standards of care, you should tell your Medic Instructor as soon as possible. If you feel that the
PERSONAL ANTICS of the medics were unprofessional or unbecoming an instructor... pay less attention to them.
I'm not saying that you should feel scared to speak out, I'm not saying that it's appropriate for the medic instructors, or any professional, to trash talk someone else.
Your actions;
1) Won't stop the behavior
2) Will isolate
YOU for "special treatment"
Is that fair? Nope.
So, since we know that will happen, try hard to focus on the skills they're teaching. If they're giving a perfect demonstration of how to be an unprofessional dirtbag half-*** medic, then you've got a perfect role model to not emulate!
Well one of the medics that was suspended is family of the board.
So now this is turned around on me, now there saying I made this stuff up cause I have something for this medic friend of mine. Which what I put in quotations I would have never known unless it came out of there mouth! But anywho
And that's
exactly how it goes!
If you're going to stir the pot on something, make it something WORTH WHILE, such as patient care.
If you wanted to tell your medic friend, then you should have said simply "I felt that they were making some inappropriate comments about other medics in the area, but their patient care was appropriate and I did learn something.". Or, of course, that their patient care was NOT Appropriate which would be an actual issue.
So the two medics returned to work, and they get paid for there leave as well.
Well then they probably aren't too upset
And now they are out to hunt me down for opening my mouth. (which I was just trying to help a friend out, I was trying to be a good friend)
Why is your medic training officer a "good friend"? I deeply respect my EMT-b instructors and I plan on tearing it up with them
once I'm no longer a student, but until then, those guys are my teachers and I'm the student and I wouldn't call them in a tizzy explaining that some other medic was trash talking them. That's not a teacher/student relationship. Teachers are told if other teachers are teaching the wrong thing.
My medic friend lost his training officer position.
Ouch. So, no one got in trouble, the bad guys got some free time off work and your buddy ended up getting screwed? Sounds like a lot of people did the wrong thing here. I'm not saying you did, but I'm saying that knowing things are like that it's best to fly under the radar.
No matter
WHAT you do, they won't be giving you honorary Captain of State EMS title next week, you'll never be in charge of every single medic and their EMTs and their actions. You won't solve all the problems that exist in every EMS unit, so try to focus on being a "under the radar" student that doesn't get people fired for running their mouths.
Maybe you said this somewhere, but did you actually speak DIRECTLY to the medics about your issue, or just call the medic they were insulting?
)....I have been in male dominated fields my whole life, and being a man myself, no worries for me.....BUT...I have seen that pretty girls are swarmed to like bees on honey as soon as they are hired. There isn't much you can do about the actions of others.....but you CAN do something on your own.....just be professional, and from your post, it sounds as if you are. Over time, men will learn your boundaries, and those boundaries are TOTALLY up to you...
