Early this morning, I brought my father to the ER. He’s getting up there in years and he’s pretty sick. You came into the room with several of the nurses. Having remembered my ER clinicals, I slid over and introduced myself to you and told you what was going on with dad. With his congestive heart failure acting up, I suggested that you might want to listen to his lungs. You told me that you had “already gotten all of your lung sounds.” Apparently, I should’ve caught onto that from the fact that you weren’t even carrying or wearing a stethoscope. You never introduced yourself to me, my father, or anyone else in the room. You never laid hands on the patient, did an assessment, or performed any skills. However, I did see you spending most of the rest of the night sitting at the nurses station cutting up with the unit clerk and the techs.
Congratulations, kid! You’ve succeeded. You’ve illustrated so much of what’s wrong with EMS. You came to a clinical unprepared. You showed me through both your actions and attitude that you’re merely marking time and there to get the very minimum done. You showed a clear lack of interest in furthering your knowledge above and beyond the very minimum entry level of one of the most minimal entry level jobs in healthcare. And most importantly, you’ve confirmed to me and probably a good chunk of the hospital staff all of the rumors about EMS and EMS students in particular.
You’ve done a great job of harming our profession. I only have two hopes for you. One, you hopefully get with the program before you end up harming or killing someone with your obvious lack of interest in medical care. In the alternative, I hope the National Registry exam does its job in keeping out the clearly incompetent.
And by the way, for the record, you’d have never started a clinical with me as your preceptor. Your stethoscope is a required part of your uniform at your program. You’d have been sent home with an explanation of why; I’d have notified your education program; and I’d have told you to reschedule.
When we allow students like you to progress, all we do is continue to shortchange our profession and retard the growth of EMS. To my fellow EMS educators, it’s time to abandon “no medic left behind” and start holding students accountable.
…and you had better be very careful because I might just be responding to a call involving you or a loved one.
Val
I hope you’re not writing that from the perspective of the EMT student because with that attitude you’re doomed to failure. Ambulance Chaser I’ve been where you’ve been and had similar experiences with family members and I agree with you 100%
Val , Son, kid, or just plain arrogant if you were with my services I would do everything in my power to get you fired. With your poor lack of judgment to even remotely say a statement as that. You have a poor attitude. So do us all a favior and get out before you do something wrong and hurt or even kill someone from your lack of morals.
Val
better for me to die than have you first, at seen. With this shitty attitude I assume your skills are the same.
I can’t believe you would have the audacity to make a comment like this. As an EMT student myself about to do my clinicals, I can assure you that I would be completely ashamed of myself if I didn’t do everything in my power to go above and beyond for my patient and their family. I joined the EMS family because I feel it is a privilege to be trusted with the care of someone, no matter how minute the call. Get out of this profession since clearly you didn’t become an EMT for the sake of being a patient advocate. I pray I never get someone like you should I ever need help, or for my family.
I thought he meant he’d be responding to the loved one of the neglectful EMT student that the letter was written to?
Either way. In public safety we help everyone. Assholes and neglectiful EMS students and their families included.
Val, as a EMT student myself I can say I may not know much, but I’d know enough to tell you that you can leave because my or my loved one would be better off transporting ourselves. At least they’d be in the hands of someone who cared. I treat my medical patients just as though they are my own family. All I can say is if you don’t care for other people or have that attitude, you are in the wrong profession.
And this ladies and gentleman is exactly what the man was talking about. Ignorance, and carelessness. For an EMT to speak like that is very rude, disrespectful, and most certainly unprofessional. Best wishes to you val.
You do understand you can lose your certification for that comment and you should. Did you just elude to poor medical care? Seriously join your generation doing something really intense. Like flipping burgers….
Statement’s like Val’s have NO place in EMS. We cannot be bitter or let our own biases enter the back of the ambulance with us. If you are in a Hatfields vs. McCoys situation and you are a Hatfield, you might have to go pick up a McCoy and you have to treat him or her just like any other JQ Public you pick up. You cannot use the back of the ambulance as a revenge game – ‘accidentally’ miss a stick, be rude to the family etc. – NONE of this can happen. If it does, you are committing professional suicide and will lose tons of respect.
As for the article, it is true – too many students see a uniform and a big, non-aerodynamic box on wheels as a thrill. EMS is a great profession, but you have to be fully committed to all of it. It is more than codes with ROSC and major trauma. There are sick calls, there are system-abusers, & there are scared 1st-time parents who will call at the first cough from their little one. You have to be accountable for all of these – put that scope on and USE IT. Don’t just get your required minimums and stop. Cherish the life-long learning process that is so critical to EMS. Be aggressive in your education, stop making excuses, and quit expecting instructors to spoon-feed you the answers to the NREMT or other tests. Learn it and then go do it.
That being said, I will say, in defense of students since I was one too, when you get actively involved, be careful and make note of EVERYTHING you do. More than once as a student, I was blamed for something I didn’t do because I was seen as ‘expendable’ by the ER staff and admin. I was threatened twice with expulsion from the program – once as a basic over some dentures that an RT lost and once as an Intermediate over something the ER charge nurse specifically told me to go do when I wasn’t supposed to. All in all though, you have to put yourself out there and be ready for anything – if you don’t, you become part of the problem, not the solution.
I just so happen to be a Hatfield and an EMT and I have often wondered how that day would go when I met that McCoy 🙂 All joking aside point well made. True medics reveal themselves once they climb into that box.
I am retired from EMS after 34 years in 3 states. I am still an instructor and beleive me, I had seen this person in class. Now I am seeing them on the street. A few years back, I was transported by my own service for what I thought was a blood clot in my leg. Ended up being a bulging L4-L5 disc. I was in a lot of pain in my left leg, which phased into numbness of my left foot that was moving up. The fairly new EMTs that transported me were polite, but not really engaged. I gave them a report of my symptoms, they put me in the ambulance, took pulse by oximeter, BP by auto cuff. Never checked to see if I had a pulse in my numb foot, never actually touched at all. At ED, they reported it as “foot pain”. The triage nurse was starting to point to the waiting room and I ended up giving my own report. Later I read the run report that had none of what I told them on it. Due to complications and subsequent surgery, I spent the last 5 years of my career in Education. I try to make the students understand the value of listening to your patient, doing manual vitals, touching your patient. Some never get it. I am seeing more and more of them both in class and on the street. Is it because so many only engage in texts and social media? I wish I knew.
I have seen this attitude in both EMS and nursing students. The issue is, the exam doesn’t do a very good job of weeding out the idiots and we get stuck with them in our rigs and hospitals. I work with the every day.
Jessica, i fear i must agree with you, I have been involved in EMS both for a community Hospital and several “Vollys” since 1979, i have been teaching EMT students for at least 20 plus years and Nursing students (AAS program) for about 6 years. They mindset and attitude of some (please note “some”), makes me want to carry DNR/DNTM cards….. with the way some of these students approach the classes, and to listen to their ‘philosophy’ on life truly makes me concerned for my ‘old age’ and to some extent the future of our society.
i fear we have infantilized our youth, by not telling them they are wrong, and by trying to make their lives better then ours were. We have legislated Darwin’s law out of existence, and created a generation who can’t think out of the box or beyond their own short noses.
Their idea of commitment to “the service”, is one of convenience until the shine is off the badge, then they are gone. It is sad to say the number of people who i know would be running towards the noise, and whom i would trust to be there with me until relived is getting smaller as “we” age out, because then number joining our ranks is not growing and we will be doomed.
This is so true, to many think that they want to be in the EMS family but when it comes down to it, that is all it is they THINK, and have no intention of knowing what it means to help people. This makes me wonder why people do what they do what they would do if they really had to work on your family. Let’s just say I wouldn’t want them working on my family with lack on interest some show in just the learning process.
Many years ago I know that was the norm. I can only speak for this area but that is not how clinicals are run any more. The bar is set high.
I couldn’t agree more. I am sick of seeing EMS people who don’t take healthcare serious. This is serious healthcare. Someone’s life may depend upon your proper assessment. Anything less than serious adherence to protocols should be ground for failure and once you’ve failed it should be VERY difficult to renter any program without extensive remedial classroom training. It’s time for EMS to grow up.
I’m so so sorry you dealt with someone as apathetic and incompetent as that EMT student. As a newer EMT on a small town ambulance company in Minnesota, it’s really nice to see feedback from other people outside my jurisdiction. It gives me a better idea how to better myself and see things through my patient’s (and family’s) eyes. I always hope that I never look like this to my patients or their families. I hope you don’t have to go through this again, but if you happen to go through another visit to the ER I hope you encounter someone more energetic, compassionate and hands on 🙂
I am an EMT and also an RN. I have been an e/r nurse for the past 11 years and an EMT for the fire department since 1996. I have to agree with alot of what this article states. I have seen every type of EMT student and can pick out in just a few minutes who really will become a professional provider. If you do your clinical rotations in my e/r you will most likely be assigned to me. If you come in unprepared, a phone call will be made to your instructors and you will be sent home. I see both sides of the situation and honestly I can see where both sides refuse to work well with each other. I know EMT’s that think every nurse is a moron and nurses who think EMT’s couldn’t find their way out of a urinal cup. Neither is true. If you are an EMT student, think long and hard about your reason for being there. Do you truly want to help, to heal, and to care for other people or are you just there for the adrenaline rush of the lights and sirens? Please consider your motivations. Your license, and your patient’s life may depend on it.
I was a care giver for 5 years and I am now getting ready for EMT school in Feb. I was attending EMT school before but due to a family emergency had to leave. While in class though I found myself getting angry many times while practicing techniques with other students. They thought is was more fun to screw around. play on their phones and crack jokes then to practice. Maybe it was that I am older than most of them then, maybe its because of being a care giver for someone who had many medical issues I have learned what is important when it comes to care for someone. I am trying a different school this time.
Erica, I like you was older in class and felt the same way with some of the students not taking some of the training seriously. Its very frustrating. Being in the people business for over 30 yrs, you learn how to engage and touch people and assess. I feel, our education needs to teach this part of caregiving. It really isn’t taught. There is so much more that can be taught , if only the course was extended. I feel the length of the course was too short for a profession that deals with life or death situations. I’m a retired cosmetologist, and education is 1500 hours and a state board for a license to practice.
EMT education is less than 200 hours in some states.
Knowledge is powerful.
My mom was transported the other day with symptoms of a stroke – SIGNIFICANT symptoms. The report began, “72 year old female with prostate cancer” and went downhill from there. If the situation was not so horrible, it would have actually been funny. As it stands it leaves me terrified that my mom, daughter or I need care and transport from those particular folks again.
Oh dear god… A female with prostate cancer… Unf**king believable…
If I were still teaching, this letter would be required reading for EVERY single EMT student, with a test following to measure comprehension. The author is “spot on” as our British cousins would say. I’ve witnessed the exact same thing in E.R.s and at too many scenes. A good medic is always learning and hates to miss any opportunity to increase medical knowledge and gain experience.
Being in this field for 16 yrs as a ff/medic and instructor, I so agree with this article. Since 9/11 I have seen people get into this field for the recognition and “glory ” not because they care about providing quality patient care. I have also seen companies that once hired only good people because patient care was the priority go down hill because billing and collecting are most important. I also disagree with the “medic” factories we have created. Emts that have never seen the back of a truck going right to medic school with zero experience in patient care.
I just graduated, and earned my EMT certification, as of Friday. This makes me so sad, and angry. I was NOT this student. I showed up early, and stayed late. I cleaned rooms for the nurses when I had “nothing” to do. I ran and got whatever the physicians and patients needed when they needed it. I damn sure had my uniform and equipment in check. I asked questions and I tried to get as much out of my clinical rotations as I could. I wish I could say that I didn’t see very much of this in my class but it’s not true. There was a kid (I turn 30 in February, most of the others in class just turned or are turning 21) showed up to a clinical with slippers on. Another showed up with no name tag. It was reported to the instructor that many didn’t know how to take a manual BP or pulse. My next step is to work in the ER while I attend nursing school. I hope I can render excellent patient care while always learning and honing my skills. I’m so sorry the author and his father had this experience, just know not ALL EMT students are like this.
I had the “pleasure” of being transported by our local EMS from the local urgent care facility. Three people showed up (young, all of them), and though the doctor felt it was “emergent” to send me by ambulance, I disagreed. Maybe the EMS personnel picked up on my attitude, but I can’t remember anyone getting anything other than an initial set of vitals (and that’s a strong maybe). I never informed anyone that day that I’m an RN, and that was the shittiest, most half-assed medical care I’ve ever receivedc from urgent-care doc, all the way to when I got dumped on the street by the ER staff.
I’m late to weigh in on this, but do feel I need to speak my mind. The fault lies not with the student but with the preceptor, the classroom instructor, and frankly the system. As a professional educator with a terminal degree, I can only say that students model what they see. Where was the preceptor? Why was the teacher not teaching? What expectations were set forth for this student in the class and lab? Why was the student ever told the minimum numbers? Human nature is what it is. If you go to the gym and the trainer says do 10 push ups, who among you will do 15? Further, each one of us is to blame for allowing poor modeling of the profession to continue. EMS packages itself as a career in such a way that it is attractive to many. It is only once the shiny paper comes off that the recipient begins to learn what is really involved. We either assist them in learning how best to use the tools, thereby increasing the profession, or we stand idly by and complain about it among ourselves. It’s our choice.