I think everyone who works in EMS has been buttonholed by someone with a gleam in their eye that wants to hear “the gory details.”
“You guys must do a lot of crazy stuff,” they usually say, leaning in, so they don’t miss one ounce of the blood and guts.
“Yep,” I always reply. “Just yesterday I had to do a call, Hell… several calls, before I had a cup of coffee. Now that my friend, is CRAZY!”
“Nah, c’mon,” they say. “Tell me something good!”
The simple fact is, most of what I do on a daily basis would bore the hell out of the average person. It’s nothing like the helicopter crashes and fiery tanker tuck explosions like you see on the TV shows. It’s a lot more mundane than that.
For example, I just took a 67 year old man with MS to his wound care appointment. He has a large decub on his posterior that needs constant attention. He’s a very cool guy, and once I got a baseline set of vitals and the important points of my PCR written, we had a great conversation about music, our favorite restaurants and the TV show Mad Men, which, it turns out, we both really dig. He was an advertising guy in the 60′s and 70′s and he told me stories about his exploits that make the main character of Mad Men, Don Draper, look like a saint. We laughed the whole way to his doctor’s appointment and when we got there, he grabbed my hand and said, “Thanks for the laughs. This is best I’ve felt in weeks. Will you take me to my next appointment?” I paused, because I hated to have to tell him that I was going to medic school, and next week would be my last set of full time shifts. He smiled and said, “That’s okay, if you spend time and talk to everyone like you talked to me, you’ll do great.” I shook his hand again on the way out and when I got out in the hallway, I wiped a tear from my eye.
Damn, I love this job.
There's nothing mundane about making someone laugh.
M7…
You and I are cut from the same cloth. Truly. And I'm proud to say that.
You're going to make an AMAZING Medic.
Calls like this – definitely the best ones to go on. Makes you feel like you did more for them than anything else….
Very nice post, M7.
Some days you are the first person a patient has talked to all week. EMS should spend more time training EMTs to interact with individuals. I worked a shift with a new, young, medic that bitched and moaned all day about bls transports. It got so bad that I told him he should really reconsider his career choice. The skills needed for a good bls call transfer to the als life and death call. I know many medics that can not talk to a family after calling a code.
Way to go medic 7! You made that guys day, maybe even his week.
Jane
Good stuff. I'm sure you will learn a lot more in medic school, but you already know how to be great.