I had the talk and we will see how it goes.
Another thing did happen yesterday, not about questioning me but about putting patient belongs somewhere and not giving me the full story about it because I am trying to do an assessment. I don't have time to babysit my partner and make sure he is doing things correctly. He puts the pt cell phone in the ALS bag and refrains from making sure I understood it was there.
I appreciate that this could have got you in trouble, but it's a fairly minor mistake. No one was hurt. If you've asked them not to interfere with your calls, it's a somewhat predictable response. They don't want to bother you and get in the way, so they don't tell you until later.
I told him lets not do that anymore, he knows not to do that. I find the phone and give it to shift supervisor to run it out to patient.
Sounds like a reasonable reaction. Crisis averted.
I am starting to get very frustrated, I am doing my best to make him understand and most of the time he is good. It is the little things that are going to get us in trouble. I am expected to be the leader on this truck, I can't lead someone who refuses to follow.
He may get talked to by a supervisor on this one and maybe he will straighten up. As one poster responded, I don't like to rock the boat, but I will if I have to. I don't want to be seen as the partner that tells on people etc. and then it will be hell to work everyday.
I had a personal rule. If I saw someone doing something wrong, and it wasn't a big deal, I wouldn't say anything. Then if management came to me, I would do anything except deliberately lying to back up my partner. Because, if it was that big a deal, I should have dealt with it at the time.
On the other hand, if it was a big deal, if I didn't agree with another ALS member's treatment, but it wasn't life-threatening or going to cause serious injury, I'd make a point of telling them I disagreed out of earshot of the patient's family. If they chose to ignore me, after a direct warning, then I felt my responsibility to back up my partner was gone. Management could come talk to me, and I'd tell them anything they wanted to know in full detail.
[Obviously in a truely dangerous situation, the call has to get ugly, and someone has to step in. I have also had to do this, as I'm sure, have most of us at some point].
My long and rambling point is, that you only have the responsibility to protect your partner from their own mistakes to a certain point. If you've confronted the guy several times on the same issue, they keep doing it, and you've warned them -- then you have every right to tell management that if they come to you.
On the other hand, you can't go to management to avoid having a heated argument with your partner. You guys have to discuss it first, outside of a truly ****** up situation where your partner has attacked someone or stolen something, or got intoxicated at work.
I would be very cautious about reporting your partner to higher powers unless you know they have a pattern of behaviour that is going to endanger your patients or other crew members.
If the situation continues to be really bad, perhaps you can ask to be assigned to a new truck? It may well be that management is well aware that the person you're working with is difficult. You may be working with them because no one senior will.
I would say that if you have to have some conflict with him, no one's going to look at you badly unless you physically assault him.