Standards or The Lack Thereof?

In every workplace you have “the people”. The people who show up, clock in, work, and go home. Society calls them the “employees”. These employee’s roles vary from place to place but in some places… the people matter more. Some jobs require good people with good work ethic. Some places require people with physical strength. Some places require people with good customer service and communication skills… and then there is EMS.

Emergency Medical Services or EMS for short, is a job that requires all of the above and then some. It requires skills and knowledge, oh and don’t forget the traits…. The ones where you can handle the sight, touch, feel, and sounds of things like let's say… the sick and injured or death and dying, other times you come in contact with just sheer stupidity, laziness, entitlement. But let’s get back to the basic traits… 

The ability to disconnect from emotions and work in some sense of compassionate robotic fashion. Becoming a real life, wrapped in flesh, type of robot who deals with the unknowns and the unspoken. The kind of box that holds knowledge, education, skills, emotions, memories, and visions all wrapped in human flesh with a beating heart formed in the shape of a human. A brain fed caffeine and junk food on a regular schedule to keep it from decaying because of the constant cortisol exposure… 

The people are assigned a level or “Scope of Practice” determined by their education and ability to pass this test called National Registry. They then choose an “Agency”, “County”, or “Company” that they want to work for. This is where they perform in their role of EMT-R, EMT-I, AEMT, or Paramedic. Wait, I missed one? Ambulance Driver? Oh, there is no test for that… or maybe there is, but we’re talking about license medical personnel. In every station there are people who show up, have a partner, run calls, write reports, and… all other assigned duties, which I guess is according to where you work. 

Through the experiences I’ve had, it is hard to find good, seasoned, and still enthusiastic paramedics, EMTs, or any employees for that matter. The shortages lead to overworking, burnout, and hella overtime… for whichever employee has no life outside of EMS. The qualities of key employees are the ability to be late, lazy, and pissed off they signed up for a job that doesn’t stop, no matter the hour of the day, the day of the week, the holiday or season. This job doesn’t care and it seems like most of the providers or admin don’t either. To come to a job where you clock in to show up for someone on what could very easily be the worst day of they’re life, you’d think the standards would at least include showing up on time, every time, urgently responding to the calls received, checking and maintaining equipment to a SAFE standard to drive excessive speeds in… and a little bit of a moral compass. 

Leaving something for the next shift to fix or clean up, blaming the last shift for what you forgot to do three shifts ago, refusing to do to what needs to be done on this shift because the more appealing part of your job is to go lay in the bed than to maintain the station… and don’t get me started on leadership skills. We pick and promote the laziest, least accountable, and very easily the worst examples to positions of leadership… so they can lead the crew right to the bedrooms for nap time at 10 in the morning, lie to patients families about lack of resources, carry patients to a lower care facility so you can return to your bed sooner? Yeah administration… it’s their fault. Leadership… it’s their fault. Myself… it’s my fault… for allowing myself to hang around a place with no standards and structure for so long that I no longer care if the floor gets swept, the toilet paper gets replaced, the trash gets taken out… but. I won’t always be. One day soon I’ll leave the place not meant for me, return to my excited and enthusiastic to go to work status, and be prideful in the place I work. Until then, I’m just in my room chilling, riding the time until it’s my turn to run the call, do the report, and clock out.

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