The Uniform, What It Means.

Each day or night in the last 13 years of my career I have worn a uniform. This uniform represents a culture of people who regularly come into your home and meet you in the worst possible circumstance. When a person chooses to become a Paramedic or EMT they are saying that helping people is important to them. EMS practitioners show up every day to provide excellent patient care to people that are sick or injured without any thought of being thanked or the risks they face.

The uniform of an Emergency Services worker represents pride and professionalism. It represents, that despite the risk of contracting any number of communicable diseases, entering unknown situations and risks of physical violence, we will show up. We will be there to help you in your time of need. We will drive through traffic that doesn't move for us, or stop for us. We will risk our lives to come to you and yours to patch up your wounds, treat your hypoglycemic episode, help you breathe, or start the process to stop your heart attack. We do this at any hour of the day or night whether we have had dinner or not, and we will treat every patient the same regardless of how many calls we have done that shift!

To me the uniform represents honor. It represents MY honor to be there to help you. It is unfortunate in the world that people get sick, or injured, but I am honored to be the person that you will trust with your life. In my years of training I learned many skills and vast amounts of information, but there is far more to paramedicine than skills and knowledge. This is a people industry. We are deeply rooted in a form of customer service that is unlike any other. To the patient we are comfort, pain relief, and the person there to make them feel better and on occasion save their lives. To the family we bring calm, and confidence that their loved one will be looked after. We are the front line of medical care. No one sees a patient before us when an ambulance is called. We arrive into scenes that are chaotic and often uncontrolled. It is our job to bring calm to the people, control to the scene and help to the patient. This is something that I do with honor and with pride, as I am honored to be that person that is there to help you in your time of greatest need.

The uniform is overall our way of showing that we are professionals and that we are there for you and your family. The pride that we feel each time we put our uniforms on is represented in the patient care we provide and the professionalism that we will demonstrate when in the public eye. The next time you see a Paramedic I hope you will know that at any given moment that person may be called to task to respond to a person in cardiac arrest, or a child that has suffered a traumatic injury, or any number of other serious situations. Take a moment to understand that that person who may be smiling at that moment has seen things that no one should ever see, and continues to show up to help people every day because of his deep honor to wear that EMS uniform.

Stay tuned for anecdotes of some of our more humorous calls, and some important life lessons that can be learned from the eyes of a city medic.