EMS Week, Here and Everywhere.

So, as many of you know, last week was EMS week. A week for us to let others know what we do, and a week for others to thank the EMS providers for what they do. Also, a lot of facebook status-copying and blogging and tweeting among the community members.

This past week was also my own personal EMS week. I remained on campus for senior week as an on-duty EMT, rocking the 3 days on, 1 day off schedule. I learned that it's totally okay to shower while on duty, and that trying to move from one dorm to another without a car while carrying the jump kit is not a fun thing to do. There was a decent amount of drama in the corps over this week, and for once, it was all boys (men?) at the center of it.

I enjoyed spending the week with the other members of the corps, and shared a 6-person kitchenless suite with my supervisor. I got to spend time with senior class members that I might not see again, and spent a decent amount of time with Matt, who also graduated at the end of the week.

Commencement itself was the big deal for the week--we had 9 EMTs (1 supervisor, 2 provisional primaries, 5 secondaries, and 1 tertiary) scheduled to be at mini-commencements around campus at various times of the day, and then we were all scheduled to convene at the Convocation center for the Main Commencement. It was all planned very well, and looked to be going smoothly until one of the primaries wasn't able to be there. We ended up having two double-secondary crews with the supervisor floating around where needed. Not ideal, but certainly effective. The eight of us made things work.

The whole day was somewhat surreal--I was in a dress uniform that was too big for me, pants that had a glorious amount of pocket space, and had a radio (with an earpiece!) that made me feel way more important than I was. I got to see Paul Simon sing "The Boxer" and give a speech, and I got to see Matt graduate. It was a good thing I was so busy, otherwise I probably would have been a puddle of tears.

Matt's family saw me responding to a call, Matt had to explained the concept of "privileged patient information" to his brother when he started asking me a bunch of questions. Following the whole day, I went back to my room, showered and got into a nice dress, and we out to dinner with his family.

All in all, it was a great week. I responded to two calls in more than 7 days, so while it wasn't a huge experience week, I got to know my fellow corps members better, and had a fun time doing so (awww). I applaud all involved with the commencement detail, and especially our operations officer, Dan. In spite of all of the last-minute problems and radio failures, he made it work.

Happy week after EMS week, everyone!

Saving Lives?

There’s a girl on campus who often asks me if we’ve “saved any lives today” or if I’m “heading off to save lives” when I’m going to shift change. I’ve heard this a few times, but every time she says something, I’m not sure how to respond. Usually she gets “not yet” for an answer, but sometime, when we both have a minute, I’ve got some serious discussing to do.

Truth be told, we don’t save lives all that often. There are a few things we do/use that will immediately do some serious life-saving: any of our drugs, suctioning and maintaining an airway. And, somebody please correct me if I’m wrong, but we don’t do a lot of any of these here at Brandeis. Generally, we make things easier for someone who’s in a not-so-pleasant situation. If you ask me if I’ve ever saved someone’s life, I’ll tell you, “No.” Sometimes we make the call for help if someone’s in need of ‘saving,’ people with more training and more equipment, but that’s a call anyone could make.

I can’t fault her for asking—I do, however, feel like I can fault myself, her other EMT friends, the media’s portrayal of the profession, and the fact that people who speak up against that only do so within the EMS community. When people ask, why not ask, “What does ‘saving a life’ mean to you?” Explain what we do, what we can do, what we can’t, what we have done, and what we’re trained to do but very well might never have the chance to do. If you have a problem with how we’re depicted in Trauma*, or even in Emergency!, don’t just blog about it to those of us that share the sentiment; talk it up with other people.

It’s strange to think that on the same campus as people who call for Tylenol or for cotton stuck in the ear, there are people who think we can do anything. There’s got to be a middle of the road somewhere.


*I watched Trauma, all 18 episodes of it. I enjoyed it. I knew it wasn't accurate. It was good for a laugh and some decent TV dramatics, more MCIs than you can count on one hand, and one highly improbable result of a helicopter crash.