To The EMS Students And New Providers

Let’s be honest.  EMS culture at some times can be toxic. We have a ton of stations where gossip, a “good old boys” club, a “mean girls” club, or hazing occupy the down time and set a horrendous tone.  In too many EMS organizations, the precepting and field training processes become a bad parody of some sort of boot camp environment where breaking down a new student or provider, hazing, belittling then, or teaching them merely to practice medicine exactly as their training officer is the sad norm of things.  I get it.  We’ve got a culture problem in EMS and we can all improve.

Many of our new students and providers are coming out of college-based programs.  (One result of the accreditation process, whether intentional or unintentional, beneficial or harmful, is that college-based programs are more likely to have the infrastructure and resources to navigate and succeed in the accreditation progress.)  There’s been a lot of discussion about the current “snowflake” or “cupcake” culture and how many students want validation.  While my experience is merely anecdotal, one of the words that I see students and new providers abuse is the word “supportive.”

I routinely see/hear/observe people using the word supportive to mean that they only seek validation.  They use the word to stifle any criticism and to discourage dissent.  The reality is that, maudlin posts and attention seeking memes aside, the practice of medicine (and that does include EMS) is serious business.  We’ve been given a position of trust, responsibility, and even some authority. That means there are right and wrong answers in what we do. There are very real consequences to much of what we do.

In short, it’s each of our responsibilities to be supportive.  But it’s also our obligation to ensure that supportive doesn’t become a way to validate and enable poor providers. Supportive should never mean a lack of accountability. Each of us do have a responsibility to “enable” our students and new colleagues — and that should be to enable to become the best clinician possible.  Nothing else is acceptable.