< Rant>
One of the burdens of having a “Popular EMS Blog” is that when someone ticks you off, you have the temptation to come down on them publicly, in blog form. The chance to fire off a scathing criticism of them and everything they stand for in the name of sweet revenge is a siren song that I have resisted up to this point.
And it’s one that I’m resisting today because I’m not that kind of guy. Systems and the way they work? Yea, they’re fair game for my rantings and aren’t spared very often, but people and individuals don’t get picked on here. I just don’t play that way. Everybody has a mother, including me, and my mommy wouldn’t like me behaving like that in the sandbox.
So the following is a completely hypothetical, fictional scenario that didn’t happen. If it happened once to someone I don’t know, then it must have happened a long time ago in an area far far away from anywhere I’ve been. I’m not saying that something like this has never happened to me, but if it did, I’m not writing about it here.
Got that? No picking on individuals here. If you read this and see yourself, then it’s your guilty conscience, not mine. It’s not my job to judge you. You’re the one that has to look at yourself in the mirror my friend. If you’ve done this to someone, have fun shaving and or fixing your hair without having to look yourself in the eyes.
So say someone in EMS gets called to a motor vehicle accident. Imagine that it was a high-speed, head-on MVC and the patient that the EMS person gets called to treat is a middle aged male who is pinned in the vehicle. The patient has multisystem trauma, but is fully conscious and alert. There is one glaring orthopedic injury that looks pretty gnarly, and some other more subtle signs and symptoms of traumatic injuries. Extrication is needed to remove the patient, and it takes about 20-25 minutes to be completed. During that time, the hypothetical EMS person we’re making up here is inside the vehicle, under a blanket, treating the conscious patient. He or She assesses the patient’s injuries, provides stabilizing ALS treatment, packages the patient to protect his injuries, and provides compassion and comfort to him as well. Under the blanket in the car it’s just the hypothetical EMS provider and the scared, injured, fictional trauma patient; During that time, a strong patient/caregiver relationship if forged.
Say that the fictional EMS person takes the fictional patient to Made-Up-Big-Trauma-Center ER after providing further stabilizing treatment in the ambulance and rapid transport to the made-up trauma center. When the fictional EMS provider wheels the fictional trauma patient into the room where the fictional trauma team is waiting, He or She begins to rattle off the handoff report about the patient to the team. That’s when this happens: One of the fictional nurses on the fictional trauma team talks over the made-up EMS person and starts asking the patient questions that the fictional EMS person had just said. In fact, the fictional EMS person only talked for about 8 seconds before He or She is cut off by the fictional nurse. So, the fictional EMS person shuts up and waits for Who-Does-She-Think-She-Is to ask her questions to the patient, the questions that fictional EMS person was going to answer in just a second or two. Then, the fictional nurse says “Oh, I’m sorry” and lets fictional EMS person start talking again. Fictional EMS person gets three words out until Ms. Important says “Wrap it up.”
Fictional EMS person wasn’t happy.
Of course, the above story is made up and never happened anywhere in the history of EMS. Trauma Center and ER nurses never treat paramedics like second-class citizens or unpersons. Prehospital assessment findings and patient reports are taken very seriously and are given the respect they deserve. Paramedics and EMTs are treated as respected colleagues by ER staff and work together to provide the best patient care through a productive and respectful working relationship.
Ewww, I think that I just threw up in my mouth a little. Lying does that to me.
So, I figure I”ve probably got a few ER nurses that read this blog thing. How do we fix our relationship in the name of patient care?
< /rant>
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