Being A Paramedic

What does it all mean? What is the meaning of life? What do we do, or can we do, to help keep it?

Eh, just questions bound for nothing.

I was thinking the other day about EMS and what part in it I play. Why did I begin? What role do I play? Have I accomplished my goals in the pre-hospital world? Have I achieved what I wanted to? What is it that keeps me here and has for so long?

We're fortunate in our community to have a high school explorer program. We take a select group of high school seniors and train them to be first responders and stick them on a crew. They carry pagers during their school day and if we get a call they simply get up out of their class, head to the station and go on the run. When they're done they go back to class. It's their responsibility to catch up on work they missed. We've had this program for over 25 years and it's amazing how much it's done for people.

Our high school program has allowed us to show high school students part of the medical profession. Lots of our kids have gone on to be EMTs, Paramedics, nurses, RRTs, Rad Techs, you name it. We have a whole host of professions that have arisen out of our program. I'm no different in that I started in 1988 as a high school rookie. Now I'm the ALS Director and thrilled to be able to continue to give back to my community.

But I look at my 20 + years of EMS and ask these questions. Next year I'll be starting my 20th year as a Paramedic. Holy shit, has it been that long? I can remember giving narcotics to people even before I could legally drink alcohol. I always thought that was pretty ironic.

Part of the reason I've hung around for so long is the service, our service. Who we are, what we are, what we've accomplished, are just some of the things that make our service and EMS great. We, like most other volunteer services, take great pride in those things. I'm proud to be a member. I'm proud to see what we've become. I'm proud to see all the changes we've been through and how we've persevered. I love being a part of something like that.

I see the EMS profession as it is and all the changes it's been through just since I've been in it. It's amazing how technology has changed, thoughts have changed, patient care has changed just in that short time period. yet through everything our industry has evolved drastically to embrace most everything in the mindset of "whatever's best for the patient we'll do."

For example, intubation was one of those "cool" tasks we'd get to do once in a while. Now with the advent of Glidescopes and other visual tools, intubation is now becoming a lost art form. Remember the old Datascopes and LP5s? Now we have the LP12s and LP15s that allow a lot of the guesswork to be taken out of patient care and treatment. We can see what's going on in 3D fashion and treat better than ever. Hell, just take the mass push and introduction of AEDs and how they've increased the survival rates of sudden cardiac death.

Probably one of the things I'll never be able to answer is the question if I've achieved my goals or accomplished what I wanted to get out of EMS. I'll say that those are ever-evolving and constantly changing answers. They're being added to daily or shift-by-shift. My goal is to provide the best possible patient care to each and every one of my patients. I want them to feel safe, comfortable, and to have trust in me that I'm doing everything in my power to help them.

I want to empower others. I want to pass on my knowledge and wisdom to those just getting a start. Hopefully they'll learn from my mistakes so they don't have to do things the hard way. Understand why I do what I do in the best interests of the patient, the crew, the service, and themselves.

I've accomplished my goals of helping others and seeing them live longer and healthier lives. But on the days that my patients don't get better I have to readjust that goal, critique what I did, and improve upon those problems to make sure they don't happen again. If not, I try to find out what else I could have done to make things better. My knowledge base is limited as I've not gone to medical school. I learn something every shift. Therein lies another part to that of needing to continue my education. The smarter I am in patient care, the more tools I have to help my patients get better and get back to some sense of normalcy.

I hope that in the next 25 years people will come up and take my place, become the educators and administrators of the EMS world and continue to evolve in to what the public wants and needs. I'm curious just what types of new technology will be available then and how much more efficient we will be with those new tools and skill sets.

Keep saving lives, keep working hard, and provide the best possible care we can as providers. Improve ourselves so that these kids will grow up healthier and safer than we have.