The Little Things

The following is an excerpt from an article that our chief emailed to our department a few weeks ago. It made me not only proud to live where I do but, more than that, it made me proud to work with the people that I do and serve in my line of work. It recounts one family's experience when they returned home after evacuating due to wildfires in California.
“As Ken Barker looks out from his deck at what used to be homes on Majestic Drive, he feels pretty lucky. The fire burned just a few feet from his home. He then realizes it wasn't luck, it was a battle, and the firefighters at his house won.
A small note is one of the first things Barker saw when his family returned home nearly a week after evacuating. The paper was placed under a lawn decoration on their doorstep.
"It's dated June 29th, and it says we removed one dead chicken from your coop. We gave them food and H20, signed Montana firefighters," Barker read.

When compared to homes lost, it's not that their chickens, or even the coop are all that important. It's just that the firefighters, from all the way in Montana, with so much on their minds, took a little time to help a little more.”
I am not a firefighter, nor do I have any intentions of becoming such but I do work for a fire-based EMS service where I serve as a paramedic and fire support/rehab. I work with a lot of great people. I also work with a few people who, in my personal opinion, should be considering another career choice. However, it is the great ones, the unsung heroes like those that wrote that note that make me WANT to come to work.
I am fairly new to my department and I'm still working on getting to know my colleagues on a personal level. The other day, I was on the same shift with a coworker I had only previously met while passing. So I asked him one of the first questions I have posed to all of my colleagues over the last few months, “Are you a paramedic or an EMT?”
“I'm just an EMT,” was his response.
Usually, when people tell me they are JUST an EMT, I reply with some reassurance along the lines of “We all start somewhere” or “There is no such thing as JUST an EMT. When I'm on-scene, I want a good EMT right next to me.”
I shared no such words of encouragement with my coworker. Something about his manner told me that just being an EMT is all he would and should ever be. It is not that I doubt his skill or knowledge. However, I sensed that his motives were off-based and I wasn't even going to breach that discussion.
Before you go judging me and thinking that I think my coworker is a non-motivated excuse for a human being, let me explain. In EMS, fire or police there are 2 different kinds of people. There are those that are in it to truly help people and will do all they can to keep out of the spotlight. On the flip side, there are those that are glory hounds and will take advantage of every opportunity to open their mouth and throw in their opinion or steal someone else's thunder. My humble opinion is that the latter have no business being in the emergency business. Unfortunately for my colleague, I knew in a quick summation of his overall demeanor that he was most definitely one of the latter and, quite frankly, I don't give much attention to those types of people in my life. Attention is what they want and I refuse to satisfy that.
Nonetheless, I do believe in giving people second chances. So, I withheld official judgment of my colleague...if for only a little while. A few hours later while a some of us were taking a break, he made the unwise decision to once again speak in my presence. Another co-worker who has been trying for quite some time to shift into the law enforcement sector was talking about the various places she was applying for. One of the places she happened to mention was where several of Mr. Big Shot's in-laws were also employed. He name-dropped a bit to boost his ego and then threw out something along the lines of “It's not what you know. It's who you know. If I applied for a job there I would get it without any questions asked.”

Admittedly, it took a strong part of my being not to kick him in the shin and/or punch him in the face. Who does he think he is diminishing someone's hopes for a job of their dreams just because HE knows people?!? He had officially received a big jerk stamp in my book.

As the conversation progressed he received several more jerk awards. He asked me why I got into EMS. His response included a few sexist remarks and eventually he steered the conversation to focus on him and his plans of going to a bigger service where they ran more calls and he could get paid more and receive more recognition. I'm all for people setting and reaching goals but the motive behind those goals has to be a good one. His clearly was not and at one point he made reference to the number of crap calls that he runs where we currently work.

I hate it when anyone refers to any part of our profession as crap. I don't really care if Grandma has had a mild cough for 3 days and finally decided that 4am while I was fast asleep was an ideal time to call for an ambulance and then she met me at the curb with a packed suitcase. It, my friend, was not a crap call no matter which way you slice it. Every call I go on is a chance to touch lives, to educate the community, to give comfort and support to those that need it and to give voice to my profession. What if Grandma was lonely at 4am because she just doesn't sleep like she used to and she was actually thinking about taking too many heart pills and praying she could go back to sleep and never wake up? Then Grandma had a tickle in her throat and suddenly she thought maybe going to the hospital was a good idea because maybe once she got there (or even while I was taking her there) she would admit that she had been thinking about taking her life and the cough excuse would help her save face, at least until we got to the real root of Grandma's 911 call. That is not crap.

I am a member of several online EMS forums. For the last several months, the same general topics have consistently surfaced, the two most contentious of these being professionalism in EMS, especially in regards to code of ethics and social networking, and earning recognition and respect as a profession. I believe all of those go hand-in-hand. How can we convince people to not simply call us ambulance drivers if we don't respectfully educate them on all that we really do instead of simply viewing it as a “crap” call?

One of my favorite EMS blogs is entitled “A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver” written by Kelly Grayson, a highly respected and experienced paramedic. Many months ago, he wrote my all-time favorite post “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”. If you have time, I recommend reading the entire blog post but since you are in the middle of reading mine, I will share the highlights with you. As you may imagine, there are myriads out there who balk at the title choice for his blog. (Personally, other than being true, I think it's also simple genius.)

Anyways, Kelly's blog has this to say...

In the first couple of years of this blog, I got quite a few private e-mails questioning my choice of blog titles. Invariably, they’d start by saying how much they liked what I had written, how entertaining or inspirational or educational they found my blog, but…

“AD, you’re an experienced paramedic,” they’d chide. “Surely you understand our struggle to be recognized as a true healthcare profession! How can you, of all people, call yourself an ambulance driver? It’s demeaning and disrespectful!”
To those people, my response is usually, “Splintered wood and mineral fragments may rupture my skeletal structure, but nomenclature does not impair me.”
Respect can never be demanded, only earned.
90% of the patients who call you an ammalance drivah do so for one reason and one reason only – because you do indeed drive the big horizontal taxi. If they’re the type to call you for a hangnail in the wee hours of the morning, or fake abdominal pain to get a free pregnancy test at the ER, they’re not interested in your capabilities. They want a ride, period. You’re it.
The other 10% of your patients are pretty easy to spot, because they usually preface their chief complaint with some variation of “I feel so silly for calling y’all, but I just didn’t know what else to do.”
Those people may well represent a teachable moment, an opportunity to teach the public about our capabilities. And when that moment arises, their education would be better served by couching your words in gentle humility, and letting your actions demonstrate your skills and professionalism.”
BOOM.
I can't state it any better than he did so I won't try. Each EMS member is a part of the whole. So, if we want our profession to receive the respect and recognition it deserves, we have to start with ourselves. I cringe when I am reading comments on various Facebook posts or other blogs and run across an irate EMT who decides it is okay to drop the F-bomb in a public forum or proceed to complain about the last patient they had or other varying aspects of our profession. How can you expect respect when truly you have no respect for anyone or anything else? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Enough said.
The note my fellow Montanans left on a doorstep in California forever changed a man's life. They didn't sign their names because they weren't looking for recognition. But what they did do will have a lasting impact on the level of respect that man has for every firefighter he may come in contact with from that day forward. Respect comes from the small things we do...the little things that we do just because we know they're right. I think we can all learn a lesson from that.