Thoroughly consider what am about to say before you respond. I am not insulting you when I say it. I am only a student about a month from graduating so l am aware my experience will not be comparable to yours.
To me, you honestly sound like the pessimist. Always focusing on the negativity of any situation.
You start of by saying they told you "not to give up" which says to me, you expressed your uncofidence toward them. Meaning, you tell them your "deepest darkest secrets" like you're in the bathroom at an elementary school.
stop. Stop. Stop.
Grow up man. I am not trying to be mean right now. I am legitimately concerned for you because you seem to be going down a mental path I am too familiar with, And I don't think you even realize it. Don't let yourself get depressed and view every other human you come into contact with as free therapy because your dad didn't hug you or whatever it is that set you off.
For me personally, it was family related. I am not trying to offend you right now, even if say these things. I am only clarifying because some people don't understand how to jokingly bash each other while being serious at the same time. Learn how to do this.TRUST ME.
no station wants to have the guy who's so sad all the time always concerned about himself crying to the preceptors (in my case at least because I am still a student) and brings the mood down.
From the little experience I have, busy stations get little rest at some periods when the universe decides to throw up all over them.
Sometimes there are days they are ready for calls and are aching to make a difference, and get 3 baker acts and a DOA Pediatric abuse toilet drowning 5 minutes before clocking out.
You are attempting to enter a group of people, who trust each other with the liability each of them is capable to inflict upon the other. Would you like it if someone came into your family and started to complain that they're sad they weren't "accepted" and "loved" and "RESPECTED" right from the start. How would that make you feel? Would you become this guy's personal therapist and tend to his every need? You've spent a long time building up a bond with people you call family. It's human nature to not trust someone as soon as they show up. Having an EMT certification doesn't make you able to kick and scream your way into a station until people treat you like you know what you're doing.
PROVE IT. These people are here because they CHOOSE to be. Not because they are getting paid. They are there for the SOCIAL aspect. If you bring them down, they will attempt to let you know as such.
Some places are just more polite about it
Here's a scenario.
What if you're in a Significant MOI MVC, you've ejected a few yards from the vehicle and collided feet first into a concrete divider. with 2 fractured femurs, no pedal pulses, your legs are paresthetic and slowly losing feeling in your distal philanges from internal blood loss, you can hear your heart palpatations muffled under the tennitis still ringing in your ears. You're lying supine on the hot asphalt, your compression fractures roasting on the scorching pavement, with your splintered bone ends forcefully poking and piercing through your subcaneous tissue, grinding along with the grittiness of the time worn rough concrete surface.
you're diapharetic, and freezing cold. No temperature regulation, and roasting on a highway but chills shooting through your body like lightening bolts are the only sensations that make themselves apparent in your healthy young body that had worked flawless just minutes before. Your car you just paid off is totaled(you know, the one you've been working minimum wage for 10 years just to pay off?) , but it's at the back of your list of worries. The only thoughts you can think of is life. How you want to live. How your life is worthy of emergency care. But how will you even pay for this? You have crap health insurance.
suddenly you see it. Red flashes are all around you. There's a chance for life. The world isn't ending maybe. They're here to take you away from the pain.
You catch the voice of one of your rescuers. One of The two first responders, walking toward you, who you expect to be 100% commited to saving your life because you've never been so scared in your life, is complaining about how nobody likes him at the station. He says he doesn't fit in and how it makes him sad. You then see this man approaching you, calling out for verbal response. You attempt to call out, but you can't summon the energy to give anything more then whimper. You feel your jaw forcefully pushed forward. A peice of plastic is placed in your mouth contacting on the back of your throat. You gag for a few seconds before it is removed. You feel a slick tube running into your nose, then hear a "wait.. is that how..." feel it pulling out, and pushed back in, then out and into the other nostril. He fumbles with the mask and asks nis partner "is this right?" The man seems to lack confidence in his ability. He seems afraid and squeamish to hold manual traction on your leg as his partner retrieves a traction splint.
How would you feel if this guy was the one to pull the pulley on the splint?
This guy doesn't know what he's doing. It's clear as day. Even to your cyanotic roasting hypoxic brained self on the pavement.
You would be praying new people came soon to interject.
Don't look at what I say and thnk "that's not what I would do at all, this guy doesn't know me I am so much better then that".
because when you talk like you are, that's the image you portray to me, If your colleagues have made an effort to remind you not to give up.
What is important is that you appreciate the oppurtunity of being able to comfort and provide care to people when they are in their most vulnerable state at the edge of death(as rare as these calls are). It is an absolute privlege to do this job. The work enviorment should be a null point. If you want change, earn the respect you deserve by showing them you have a backbone and the confidence they can rely on. For now, just appreciate the responsibility of being on the other end of the number people call when they need life changing help they do not have the ability to provide themselves. If that's not the reason you're doing it, none of these guys will want to be locked in a rolling dying people box on wheels with your presence.
I'm just a student. I have no job experience, only clinicals. But this is just how I feel on the situation. Please take no offense to anything In this post. I am absolutely just trying to help.
