Things You Need To Know

As an EMS provider, there are a lot of things you need to know. Many of them are clinical things about the practice of medicine that a lot of people who are a lot smarter than me can teach.  But for your reading pleasure and hopefully, for your education, here are some other things I’ve learned.

1) Most of your patients have no idea if you know what you’re doing.  They do know if you’re nice.

2) I spent a great deal of my time in EMS looking for the perfect EMS system.  I found out more than once that such a system doesn’t exist. Find the system that works for you (or that you can make work for you).  You’ll be infinitely happier in the long run.

3) It’s important to be current and correct on the practice of EMS.  It’s less important letting others know you’re correct. Corollary to this axiom: If you do need to coach or correct others, there’s an art to doing it.

4) EMS as it exists now in the USA has only been a thing for 45 years or so.  It’s still growing. And I think most of us are impatient. I know I am. But one thing I continually have to remind me myself is that EMS is still growing and maturing. Whether its your EMS system or another, it isn’t going to magically improve overnight or reach the level we know it can overnight. Continual gradual improvement is a thing. And in some systems, that improvement is showing. It’s just not going to happen immediately.

5) Your mentors will change. As we grow and mature in our practice, we find that some of the people we idolized aren’t as smart as we first thought.  And that’s ok too.

6) Knowing what to do is easy.  Knowing when to do it or not do it is the hard part of being a clinician.

7) Taking a patient to a hospital incapable of managing their condition is a disservice to the patient.  Part of being an EMS provider is that we are supposed to know where to take our patients.

8) This is actually supposed to be fun. When it’s no longer consistently fun, it’s time.

9) A significant portion of our time in EMS is spent dealing with emergencies.  The patient defines emergency.  We don’t.  And our education fails to recognize what patients consider emergencies.

10) A preceptor once told me that the paramedic’s job is to bring order to chaos.  If you can combine that skill with the passion and zest that most rookies and volunteers have along with being current on medicine and slaying dogma, you’re on your way.

Comments

  1. Sam Dodson says

    After a while, some days, it ain’t fun…… so just refer to #1!!!! In all seriousness, great advice and hitting on all cylinders!!!!

  2. Re: #5. The important thing is that they were smarter than us when we needed them to be smarter than us. They got us to a point, then it was our responsibility to improve from there.
    That some of what they taught us was wrong really isn’t all that important in the long run. No doubt some of the people I mentored went on to be better providers than was I.