New Partner/ Bad attitude

[medicp94dao]

In response to Triemal04.. I have worked with this guy since, and his attitude has been pretty much the same each day I work with him. He has only seen this pt a couple of times due to the fact he has made it blatently clear he does not care for her. He cannot give a reason. But, none the less. As far as to how he treats the other patients he just acts as if they were not human and does not talk to them unless he needs vitals or info. His view from what we (the other crews and his old partner) gather is that or patients do not need ambulances all they need is a ride in a taxi and could really care less either way.
I have spoke with my training officer about this matter and it has come to my understanding he has been employed with the company for maybe 6 months. He has been suspended 1 time for mistreatment and is currently under review for the same allegations made by other crew members.
I did not get into EMS because i wanted to play GOD or for the money (because their is no money in EMS.. lol..) I wanted to help people whether I am in transport or emergency runs. Everyone is a human and deserves to be treated so... Yes, our job does require us to have a few bad apples as patients but, does that mean we should not give them the same level of care as everyone else???

 

[fm_emt]

Yes, one of those BS 0300 calls. But, that is when the people usually spike a temp indicating that something is going wrong. It's not because the nurse was bored.

Sometimes it's just because swing shift forgot to call anybody!

But you're right, even at 0300, you'll occasionally find some patients that have some pretty darn funny stories to tell you. Some of my most memorable patients have been the 0100-0600 ones.

 

[triemal04]

In response to Triemal04.. I have worked with this guy since, and his attitude has been pretty much the same each day I work with him. He has only seen this pt a couple of times due to the fact he has made it blatently clear he does not care for her. He cannot give a reason. But, none the less. As far as to how he treats the other patients he just acts as if they were not human and does not talk to them unless he needs vitals or info. His view from what we (the other crews and his old partner) gather is that or patients do not need ambulances all they need is a ride in a taxi and could really care less either way.
I have spoke with my training officer about this matter and it has come to my understanding he has been employed with the company for maybe 6 months. He has been suspended 1 time for mistreatment and is currently under review for the same allegations made by other crew members.
I did not get into EMS because i wanted to play GOD or for the money (because their is no money in EMS.. lol..) I wanted to help people whether I am in transport or emergency runs. Everyone is a human and deserves to be treated so... Yes, our job does require us to have a few bad apples as patients but, does that mean we should not give them the same level of care as everyone else???

Well, sounds like you really did get stuck with an a$$hole. Keep doing what you're doing and don't get sucked into his problems, and do what you can to make sure he doesn't reflect poorly onto you. And if something major happens, document, document, document, and then notify your supe. It sounds like this guy doesn't have the stomach for running BLS-interfacility transfers (you still didn't say, so I'm still assuming that's what you do). And while he's kind of right in that a lot don't need an ambulance but a taxi to the hospital, if he's that sick of doing it, then he needs to go somewhere else.

Everyone deserves the same amount of care and treatements, but, like I said, that doesn't mean that you have to hold everyones hand and sweettalk them. There will be times when you need to be aggressive with someone and get a bit mean with them. Or at minimum not nice. It may not happen as much on a transfer car, but it could still happen to you. Be nice when possible, but don't rule out being the bad guy sometimes.

Edit: Doesn't change the fact that this guy sounds like a jerk, but how are his actuall treatements of pt's? Not how he talks to them, or treats them socially, but medically?

 

[oldschoolmedic]

Okay, everyone has pointed out the horrors of lack of education and how some people are just jerks etc...

Have any of this guy's fellow employees ever just told him he was being an a$$hole and to knock it off, or just to put on your big girl panties and NOT let him in the back of the truck?

I work with some people on a daily basis who are drivers for me, regardless of their certifications. Either through ineptitude or a lack of patient relations they have proven themselves useless in the back of the truck. They know why they drive for me because I will not hesitate to tell them or management. If management keeps them on the street, fine, but I do not have to let them ride a call. Only one has ever taken it to human resources and lost their job when I explained why I only let them drive. Helps to have documentation to back up what you say.

Stand up, grow a set, and tell this guy the way it will be from now on. If he complains because YOU won't let HIM be an a$$hole to patients, how do you think that will turn out. Keep notes of his behavior and use them to back up your case. He will disappear soon enough.

 

[firetender]

Yes, there's all that AND there's the part about developing self-respect.

As long as you're a medic you're gonna have buttho++ partners. No avoiding that. And you're never going to be able to force anyone to stop their behavior, either.

But you can set limits and boundaries and enforce them by what YOU do. You say (speaking of the original post) there's venting going on. Maybe so, and it doesn't hurt to give him room. In that case, when you guys are alone and he starts tell him, look I'll give you five minutes to vent all your :censored::censored::censored::censored: (circumstances allowing), as loud and as vicious as you want, and then, that's it; can it.

You can limit his behavior without resisting it (It's an Aikido thing!). It can also be handled with a sense of humor.

Another thing is to warn him that next time he starts, you're gonna walk away. Let him stew in his own bile. Once he loses his audience, believe me he'll lose steam.

Make it clear that you won't tolerate that behavior. Then make sure that you have consequences that you enforce. That could include letting him know you'll refuse to work shifts with him. That brings management's attention to the situation. He's more on the coward side.

Bottom line, you have the right to defend your psychic territory. You can get creative and still be firm.

 

[Thanach]

Everybody refers to the dialysis patient, and yet they are probably one of the sicker patients in our communities. A few hours behind on their dialysis schedule and they can be a true emergency. The number of dialysis patients is growing each day. It is not just a disease of the old and demented. These are just the ones that need your assistance to get to the dialysis machines. There are many young patients that may also need dialysis after long term drug therapy possibly after some trauma that was complicated by infection. Any one in healthcare runs the risk on contacting some nasty infection that could require heavy drug therapy and the possible loss of kidney function.

Case in point, not even three weeks ago I went with my partner on a (supposedly) routine run to bring a little 71 year old lady back to her nursing home from dialysis.

This turned into a true emergency.

This dialysis center puts pt's when they are done and non-amb next to the nurses desk in their dialysis chairs. Small problem with that, this lady, in the five minutes from when they put her there till we walked in, went unresponsive, into respiratory arrest, and had a pulse in the low 20's. When we went to mover her onto our stretcher, she went into cardiac arrest.

Luckily, even though I am an EMT-B, my state, region, and service run trucks under a P/B waiver, where a truck can run at the medic level with a medic and a basic, and my partner that day was a medic.

On a side note, after CPR, an ETT, a ton of meds, and a six minute ride to the local ER, she had a pulse when we wheeled her in. The family decided to let her go peacefully and pulled the plug that afternoon.

 

[crash_cart]

Yes, there's all that AND there's the part about developing self-respect.

As long as you're a medic you're gonna have buttho++ partners. No avoiding that. And you're never going to be able to force anyone to stop their behavior, either.

But you can set limits and boundaries and enforce them by what YOU do. You say (speaking of the original post) there's venting going on. Maybe so, and it doesn't hurt to give him room. In that case, when you guys are alone and he starts tell him, look I'll give you five minutes to vent all your :censored::censored::censored::censored: (circumstances allowing), as loud and as vicious as you want, and then, that's it; can it.

You can limit his behavior without resisting it (It's an Aikido thing!). It can also be handled with a sense of humor.

Another thing is to warn him that next time he starts, you're gonna walk away. Let him stew in his own bile. Once he loses his audience, believe me he'll lose steam.

Make it clear that you won't tolerate that behavior. Then make sure that you have consequences that you enforce. That could include letting him know you'll refuse to work shifts with him. That brings management's attention to the situation. He's more on the coward side.

Bottom line, you have the right to defend your psychic territory. You can get creative and still be firm.

I really like this post. Allow venting to go on. Be a good listener and offer a few pointers in-between when the other person has to take a breath. Use of humor, changing the topic, as well as proposing a deep-cleaning of the fire bay might be some suggestions to run with. I work with a "moaner and groaner" who is constantly negative all the time. To be honest, I don't mind it at all, as long as it is away from who we work with. If the person starts with you, then let then be more forceful about it. I don't get worked up over a lot of "little" things. Heck, think of it as free entertainment.^_^

 

[Jon]

I'm with Triemal04 -

Everyone deserves the same amount of care and treatements, but, like I said, that doesn't mean that you have to hold everyones hand and sweettalk them. There will be times when you need to be aggressive with someone and get a bit mean with them. Or at minimum not nice. It may not happen as much on a transfer car, but it could still happen to you. Be nice when possible, but don't rule out being the bad guy sometimes.

I can seem like a "burned out" EMT on some calls, espicially for "system abusers" and stupid drunk kids. I will try to be nice, but if they are being a-holes, I'm not going to bend over backwards to be nice.

As for transport - I've worked transport before. I've had a few memorable patients that I loved transporting... and I've had more that a few GOMER's that I despised... espicially when it was a routine thing, and the patient was rude/ignorant to me.