Let's Look At The Positives Of EMS.

Quite frankly I have seen a lot of negative light on the world of EMS and emergency services in general lately. Talking a lot about the difficulties of these jobs, and the mental trauma and anguish that we go through. These are very real, and very true things that happen within the EMS culture as well as the other emergency services who swear oaths to protect the public. I am not discounting the very real and very tangible issues of PTSD, mental burn out, physical exhaustion and high injury rates that we as emergency service providers face. I just want to take a moment today to focus on the positive parts of what we do, and the reasons why some of us find it in our very bones to get up every day and put on our uniforms to go to work.

I will speak from my own experience first and build on what I believe draws people to this line of work. As a child I used to watch one of the very first shows on TV that represented the humble beginnings of Paramedicine outside of the world of combat medics that parachuted in to battle zones to care for injured soldiers. The show as many of you will remember was called Emergency, with firefighter/paramedics Johnny Gage, and Roy Desoto. This show was a look at a fire based paramedical service that strived to show how emergency medical service was rendered in Orange County California. I used to watch this show religiously as a child, and even had a hot wheels version of the rapid response fire truck that Johnny and Roy rode in.

I didn't know it then, but even that choice to watch that show birthed something in me that would later change the direction of my life. As I grew up I became a journeyman welder and when the market fell apart in the late nineties I found myself unemployed and unclear in a direction to go. It was then that I discovered my local volunteer fire department, and the first steps to becoming an, as I called them then, ambulance attendant. The rest is as they say history.

So that's my story on how I got into EMS as a career, a cole's notes version anyway. As this story is not about me, let's change the focus back to the positives of EMS. The first and foremost positive of doing what we do is that we get to make a difference in the lives of complete strangers. When a person faces a crisis, we are the people that arrive and help to fix the problem. This is an amazing feeling whether it is from something as simple as a small cut to as serious as restarting someone's heart who has had a cardiac arrest. When we arrive and get to make a difference, and you can see the gratitude, even if it isn't shared with you at the time, it reminds us why we do this. Something as simple as holding someone's hand and hearing them when they share their problem with you is rewarding. When you offer them a simple solution and a ride to the hospital the impact you can make is sometimes completely immeasurable.

Every day our office surroundings change, we have different views, we meet different people, and we get to see entire portions of the cities we live in, areas we might not otherwise ever see! There are places I have found in my city that amaze me, and it's all because my office is portable. We get to hear stories from people we never would have met! Recently I was blessed to hear a story about a soldier in the Scottish Navy who served at the same time as my Grandfather. I wasn't able to find out if they ever met, but to hear a story from a different perspective of the same time is a surreal experience. The world is a small place and experiences can be lived through the eyes of others if you were not able to be there yourself.

These are only a few of the reasons that make this career so rewarding, but I think the number one driving force behind all of us in this business, is this ONE thing. We are all blessed with an overwhelming desire to help our fellow man in their time of desperate need! To those of you that feel embittered at work sometimes, take a moment and close your eyes, and remember what got you started in this field! Something brought you here, I know this career is not all lollipops and sunshine.  I have my days too, but despite all the bad that we see and deal with at the end of the day, we do this because we want to make a difference. When people reach the end of their coping skills, that's when they call us. It is sad that today coping skills seem to be lacking in many instances, but remembering those reasons why we started doing this should help you to refocus and will remind you why this career is the best career out there! Please share and like my posts, and feel free to comment!!