People you may know..

[BenthaEMT]

As a provider in a small community I've been coming across this more and more, and I'm not really sure I've found a good way to deal with it. The issue is responding to calls for people you know.
For instance awhile back I was on a run for a suicide attempt. All of a sudden we roll up, and it happened to be a friend of mine. I froze a little bit.
Is this a common issue? How do other providers deal with treating patients they know personally outside of work? Are there any tricks to focusing on treatment as opposed to your relationship with the patient?

 

[Akulahawk]

There are no tricks, really... you just have to acknowledge that you both know each other and that you have a job to do and get to work. The other thing is that you should NEVER bring up that incident unless the other person does and NEVER talk about that incident to your other friends. They may not know and your friend may not want them to know.

 

[Ewok Jerky]

^agreed.

You say hey I know we know each other from XYZ, but I'm here as an EMT right now and I promise to keep this confidential, but if you aren't comfortable with this let me know and we will call another unit in.

Boom. Done.

 

[BenthaEMT]

That's perfect, thanks guys!