We keep seeing the pleas and exhortations to “pay EMS workers what they deserve.”  I get it.  We’re underpaid.  Or so we keep hearing.

Whether we are employed by a public or private entity, we’re still a business.  We get paid for our services, whether through tax money, patients’ payments, or reimbursement through private or public insurance. That means that we’re selling what we do — and if we don’t have customers, we don’t have ambulances — or paychecks.

The number one goal of any business is to have (and keep) customers.  (Of course, there is an exception to every rule and in the USA, the businesses that don’t understand customer retention are cable companies and cell phone providers!)  And the truth be told, we in EMS do a terrible job of gaining and keeping customers.

Let’s talk about gaining customers.  The fire service and law enforcement get it.  They routinely engage in public relations, outreach, and public education. These organizations go out of their way to make themselves visible and engage the community in almost way they can.  If a citizen shows up at a fire station, you can almost guarantee they’ll be offered a tour, a cup of coffee, and a warm greeting.  Show up at an EMS station and what happens?  Probably a grunt, at best.  Fire Prevention Week?  The firefighters are making the rounds.  National Night Out?  The cops will be there.  And probably the firefighters too.  Social media?  Most PDs and FDs have Facebook pages where they share and brand their message?  EMS?  Not so much. We have EMS Week?  What do we do?  Well, for one thing, we complain about whatever “freebies” the hospitals give us.  Maybe we’ll put a crew somewhere and give the same blood pressure checks you can get any day in the waiting areas for most pharmacies.  Ride-alongs?  Sure, some organizations allow them.  Many don’t, claiming HIPAA, liability, or some other red herring. Showing off the ambulance?  Explaining EMS training?  Nope, most places don’t do that either.  Wonder why people confuse EMTs and paramedics or just call us ambulance drivers? Wonder why people call us for non-acute reasons and then drive themselves to the ER when it’s a “real” emergency?  The reason is simple ignorance.  Ignorance can be cured.  But we’re too content to complain as opposed to educate. Most PDs and many FDs have a “citizens’ academy” program where they provide the public an insight into their world.  With the exception of MedStar in Fort Worth, I’ve yet to see an EMS program do this.  But again, we complain at the lack of respect given to us.

The lack of respect given to us.  Yep, we complain about that all the time.  But do we show any respect to our customers?  Yep.  Customers.  And if we have customers, we have to have customer service.  I could spend hours on customer service.  But I won’t, because I can distill it into two key takeaways.  First, be nice.  Second is “why be nice?”  The simple reason is that nice providers are less likely to be complained on and even sued.  The reality is that the overwhelming majority of our patients don’t know anything about the quality of our care.  What they do know about is how nice we are to them.  Please, thank you, sir, and ma’am go a long way — as does a genuine attitude of caring.

Of course, I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but maybe we need a “card course” for customer service.  In conclusion, we all complain (INCLUDING ME) about how fast food workers don’t deserve $15/hour because they don’t get our orders right.  Maybe we don’t deserve $15/hour yet either — because we don’t educate people as to our worth nor do we treat people like customers.

The next time you deal with the public, remind yourself one thing.  They’re a customer.  And without customers, there is no EMS.

There’s a lot of enthusiasm on EMS social media and some of the most enthusiastic of these people want you to know just how much enthusiasm for EMS.  There’s a lot of people saying how much they love being in EMS.  There’s a lot of those people sharing pictures of ambulances, fire trucks, helicopters, and badges. These are usually the people who have all the cool sayings, catchphrases, and memes down.  These are the ones about heroism, pride, sacrifice, and everything else all-American and apple pie. There’s also a group of marketing types who make a fair amount of money selling T-shirts to those enthusiastic EMS types.

Here’s what I never see from those types.  I rarely see why they’re enthusiastic about EMS.   And I never see their enthusiasm about the MS of EMS — medical service.  These people are never at the EMS conferences, except at the vendor’s booths getting their latest “Big Johnson EMS” t-shirt. If they go to continuing education, it’s because it’s mandated.  They share the hero stuff.  They don’t share the medical stuff.  And what they do share about medicine falls into two typical categories — war stories and dogma. For them, it’s even better if they can share both. “There I was, taking this guy to the ER who’d slipped and fell.  Good thing we put him in a C-collar and a backboard because he had a hairline fracture of C-3.  You can’t ever be too careful.”  These are the same people who believe that cutting edge medicine involves a backboard, a non-rebreather mask, and a diesel bolus.

I’m enthusiastic about EMS.  What I love is that it’s an opportunity to help someone and provide medical care when someone doesn’t know where else to turn. And to me, that opportunity to serve comes with an obligation to provide the best care possible. There’s an imperative to be up on the medicine.

EMS social media is a phenomenal tool for networking with like-minded providers and to share the latest developments in medicine.  I am incredibly thankful to some great, smart EMS professionals online who’ve shared their tricks of the trade with me. I’ve learned more about Ketamine, sepsis, rapid sequence intubation, push dose pressors, and countless other topics from the online EMS world than a hundred local classes could ever have attempted to provide. And when I’ve despaired over things, whether in EMS in general or in my personal EMS world, there’s been a friend out there who’s shared the same frustrations.  But social media friendships, just like “real world” friendships, are highly dependent on who you choose to associate with. As the old saying goes, “choose wisely.”

In conclusion, it’s great to be proud and enthusiastic to be in EMS.  The challenge is to channel that enthusiasm into being a provider that provides a service to your patients. If not, you’re just another whacker.  Don’t be that whacker.