Years down the road, how do you continue to love this profession?

[sack jears]

Newly certified emt starting medic school in the fall. I hear a lot of talk about burn out and basically becoming miserable. Am I doomed to this fate? What keeps you going in a job full of moments of complete boredom punctuated by sheer horror? What are your thoughts?

 

[gotbeerz001]

1. Realize that you are not going to save the world; you're going to go to work.
2. The two most important people are you and your partner; spend your shift being safe and getting along.
3. Many patients do not approach your call with the honesty that you do; try to do the best you can to solve problems but do not get caught up trying to figure people out.
4. Be nice to your patients.
5. Believe your patient the first time you meet them.
6. If you have a tough call, focus on learning (at least) one thing you would do differently next time.
7. Hold on to those calls where your actions truly made a positive difference; they are relatively few and far between.


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[akflightmedic]

#1 x 1000!!

 

[Gurby]

I have had a few partners with 30+ years on the job. The thing they have all shared is that the calls they seem to enjoy the most are the "boring" ones where all we do is pick the patient up, provide some emotional support and bring them to the hospital. I think that says something about where your motivation should be if you hope to go the distance in EMS.

 

[Qulevrius]

I'll go with #2, 6 and 7. A good partner and good calls make all the difference. As an added bonus, working for a good system that doesn't run you into the ground and has competent lower level management that won't throw you under the bus at the 1st opportunity.

 

[chaz90]

Every once in a great while, the first response to a thread provides a definitive response.

This appears to be one of those times.


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[Underoath87]

Ask someone who has a "normal" job how their day went and try not to yawn.

 

[cruiseforever]

1. Realize that you are not going to save the world; you're going to go to work.
2. The two most important people are you and your partner; spend your shift being safe and getting along.
3. Many patients do not approach your call with the honesty that you do; try to do the best you can to solve problems but do not get caught up trying to figure people out.
4. Be nice to your patients.
5. Believe your patient the first time you meet them.
6. If you have a tough call, focus on learning (at least) one thing you would do differently next time.
7. Hold on to those calls where your actions truly made a positive difference; they are relatively few and far between.


Agree with all the above. I would also add.
1. Be humble when you start a new job. A big turn off to a lot emts and medics is the know it all, been there done that type of person. In time you can impress them.
2. Research places of employment. There are many services that treat their people well.
3. Be respectful of your co-workers. Show up on time or early for work, clean your equipment.
4. Do not be a whiner. We all piss and moan from time to time. But there is nothing more miserable than sitting beside someone that complains the whole shift.
5. Try to stay some what healthy.

 

[Carlos Danger]

How does one continue to love EMS?

Don't do it full-time for more than a handful of years.

 

[MMiz]

I was flying home a few days ago and was talking to the flight attendant seated facing me. She sarcastically said, "find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life." We both laughed.

It seems that many working in EMS see it as their passion, their calling. Heck, thousands volunteer to do it for free.

I tell my students that they don't have to love their job. Instead, a job provides the means to do what you really love.

If it pays the bills, I'm still passionate about it, and I don't dread going into work, I'm happy.

 

[zzyzx]

It is important to keep setting future goals for yourself. Right now you are focused on medic school, but in the future you may try to advance your education or achieve some other goal.
It is also important to understand that EMS is a job, and that you aren't supposed to love every minute of it.

 

[SeeNoMore]

I appreciate my job , and I can say I care about the work I do a great deal. It's very important to me that I do it to the best of my ability and continue to improve. But I can't say I love it. I love my family, I love my time off and hobbies. I don't enjoy talking about work, taking extra shifts if not needed for the budget , going to conventions/gatherings etc. Even after all these years I often find the job quite stressful, and while I have learned to manage/repress the stress I know it still builds up.
Then again, I am sure that if all of a sudden I was pumping gas for a living I would miss being able to be part of a relatively interesting field like prehospital medicine. As it is , it's become so normalized working like many of us do (60-72 hours + a week) that I find it hard to be as "in the moment" and appreciative as I should be.

I will say that when I have not had to work so many hours I found I enjoyed the work much more. That balance is essential if you can manage it. I also am trying to keep moving slowly with my education. Even if it takes me till my early (mid ....late) 40s I hope to finish CRNA school. That dream helps, even if it may not be a reality.

Never forget , you don't have to do this. I still think about doing something else at times. Daydreams so far.

 

[epipusher]

Getting raises helps.

 

[Carlos Danger]

I always cringe when I hear people talk about how it's so easy to get burned out and depressed in EMS because it is such a stressful, hard, under-appreciated job.

Well, I call BS on all that. Sure, EMS can be a difficult job (or it can be one of the easiest jobs in the world, depending on where you work), but lots of jobs are stressful and difficult, and I don't see nearly as many construction workers or chemical operators or surgical technicians or long-haul truck drivers, for example, complaining about how stressed they are and undervalued and underpaid they are, despite the importance of what they do. Yes, there are things that are uniquely stressful or difficult about EMS, but have you ever seen what surgical techs (again, just an example) deal with from surgeons on a daily basis, or what floor nurses do to take care of 6 or 8 or more patients at once?

I think what gets many people into trouble in EMS is simply that their expectations of their role and it's rewards are far greater than they should be. First, I think there is something about the personality types that are attracted to EMS that requires extrinsic sources of satisfaction. You know, the whole "I became an EMT because I always wanted to help people" really means "I became an EMT because I always wanted people to appreciate me" in a lot of cases. Then you start school and the training is pretty interesting, and just challenging enough to make you feel like you are really learning and accomplishing something, but not nearly challenging enough to really weed out anyone who is motivated for the wrong reasons. And the whole time you are told how special and important and valuable EMT's are. We all know the reaper-racers who "do everything the ED does at 90 mph". If we're honest, most of us have a fair amount of that going on early in our career, even if we don't show it. Then, we get out into the field and reality sets in quickly. It's tough to feel heroic and highly appreciated when most days are full of back-to-back dialysis transfers in the 100 degree July heat, and if you do deal with sick patients, you quickly realize how little you know and how little you can really do for most patients. To complicate all of this, many people get into EMS at a young age and are dealing with this at the same time as they are starting to deal with many of the other challenges of adult life. And the conclusion that they come away with is that EMS is somehow a uniquely difficult career.

When in reality, the surgical tech and the floor nurse and the OTR trucker all work long hours and have plenty of stress and difficulties, too. But because they didn't got into their line of work with unrealistic expectations that it would always be awesome and exciting and fulfilling, they correctly see the challenges of their work as just part of life.

I think this dovetails with the issues of depression and drug abuse and suicide in EMS, but that's another topic.

The point is this: EMS is a job. Nothing more, nothing less. Hopefully you enjoy it and find it fulfilling, but if you do that's really just a bonus - it isn't the reason why you go to work. Look for meaning and fulfillment in your relationships and your hobbies and yourself, not in your work.

 

[StCEMT]

Well, I call BS on all that. Sure, EMS can be a difficult job (or it can be one of the easiest jobs in the world, depending on where you work)

Always think of this when I hear that kinda talk pop up. The city medics here run their *** off, that is a place I would be a bit understanding. On my side of the river though, I have had shifts where I sit for 11.5 hours before a call came in. Not really difficult work there. I'd even say my busier days still aren't as hard as many manual labor jobs.

 

[epipusher]

Ditto. Very well said Remi.

 

[bill williams]

I no longer work on the road. I worked for an extremely busy inner city EMS system. We worked 12 hour shifts, that usually turned into 14-16 hour shifts. Usually you would be mandated to work another 12. In 12 hours we would run anywhere between 12-15 calls a day. Higher ups did not care about you. You saw something stressful and needed to speak to someone, it was "Well we have calls holding, maybe next time". Rigs constantly broke down. The people I worked with were unprofessional and did not care. They hire 60 people a year to keep up with turnover. The pay was aweful. We received more training and ran more calls than PD and FD combined and yet we were paid the least. Had to remove myself from that situation before I became insane.