Imagine if you will this hypothetical scenario:
You and your roommate have just graduated EMT school together and go to work at competing ambulance companies in the same city. He works for HIS ambulance service, and you work for YOUR ambulance service. Both services have similar fleets, similar deployment patterns, and similar call-volumes. In fact, there’s really no way to tell them apart other than the fact that the HIS ambulance service uniforms are sickly green jumpsuits, and YOUR ambulance uniforms are Macho Blue Shirts with navy blue pants.
You both go off for your first day on the job which understandably includes several hours of training on company policies. For both of you, the whole day turns out to be a long class on how to clean the inside of ambulances.
Here’s the differences, though. At YOUR ambulance, you learn about the biological functions of bacteria and viruses. You learn their strengths, their weaknesses, how they reproduce on inanimate environmental surfaces, how they create biofilms to increase their reproductive capabilities and life span, and how pervasive they are in randomized samples from real-life ambulances. You learn how grime collects in the ambulances, how it adheres to the surfaces that you will be cleaning, and what the various types of substances are that you will most commonly find in real-world applications. The whole first day is spent on nothing but learning about dirt, grime, and germs and how they contaminate ambulance interiors. They even threw in the types of materials that the ambulance interior is made from and what the specific dirt-holding and germ-breeding properties of each material are. You see samples and scenarios pertaining to germ and dirt proliferation on ambulance interiors.
Not only that, there’s homework, reading material, and a report due the next day.
The second day that you report to YOUR ambulance service, you learn all about different types of cleaning products, tools, and disinfectants. You learn how to properly choose the detergent needed for optimum dirt-dissolving power on what type of surfaces you may have to clean; You learn the proper disinfectant to choose for each type of commonly encountered bacteria, virus, and fungi spore; and you learn the proper contact times to leave each product on for optimal disinfection and/or dirt dissolving power. Then you learn about every different type of sponge, mop, rag, fabric, and tool used to clean the ambulances. You spend a few hours in the laboratory they have testing out the material and performing experiments in the name of learning.
Oh, and after that day too, there’s a lot of homework and reading material.
Your roommate, on the other hand, went to work and found out that he too had to learn about ambulance cleaning. He learned that they also expect clean ambulances, however his choices and training are much simpler. He is told to clean the ambulance using two bottles: One marked “Cleaner” and the other marked “Germ Killer”. He is given ten rags and is told to clean the ambulance for inspection by the owner of the company using the tools given in the time allowed. He does so and is told “Good, now do it again tomorrow”. The next day, he again cleans the ambulances using the tools and training provided, and is again told “You did a good job”
In the above scenario, the first ambulance service, “YOUR Ambulance, uses a form of advanced education to teach their people how properly to clean the ambulances to their specifications. The education is rigorous and in-depth.
At “HIS Ambulance” they use training, and vocational experience to teach their employees how to properly clean the ambulances.
Here’s some questions I have:
- Which ambulance service do you think will have cleaner ambulances in the long run?
- Which employee do you think will do an overall better job in cleaning the ambulances?
- Which employer, “YOUR Ambulance” or “HIS Ambulance” do you think has the better philosophy?
- Which ambulance cleaning class will result in the better, more motivated, happier employee?
Anyone else see the relationship to EMS training/education here? Which one results in a more “Professional Ambulance Cleaner” that is better equipped to handle the job?
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