Welcome to Paramedic Blogs 2.0!
Wait, there was a 1.0?? Yes, technically, that is why Paramedic Blogs 2.0 has content but we never really did anything with it because we developed ScientificBlogging.com and that took off, and then we developed ScienceCodex.com and Kids Science Zone ... but I never forgot about this.
I've long thought that Bob Seger's Turn The Page could easily be about EMS. I'd like to use it for our annual company video sometime. It describes the life of a rock singer, and I think there are some great parallels between how he describes his day and how we think about ours. The song has a wickedly good sax solo&Seger's tired, worn-out voice to add ambiance.
Let me try to explain it to you...
On a long and lonesome highway, east of Omaha.
Tom Reynolds has had a slow month, and was moaning blogging about it. From his post: Watch the ambulance crew after a 'decent job', they'll be standing outside the ambulance bay at the hospital chatting to their colleagues. They'll be animated, they'll be interested in their job but most of all they will have a sense of satisfaction of a job well done.
He had just moved to town. He was facing a serious medical crisis and his mind was elsewhere as he cruised through the stop sign&t-boned a car in the intersection. After the fire department, police & paramedics showed up, he told them he hurt all over, and he was strapped to a board, loaded into the ambulance next to the other driver, & taken the few blocks to the hospital.
We're being pushed aside by a wall of eager volunteer firefighters as they scramble to enter the trailer. They go running down the very narrow hallway to render care. Unfortunately it's too late. The occupant has apparently died in his sleep.
This may be a good thing - for them. Had this person simply been sleeping, or drunk/drugged, and a pace of strangers in civvies came thundering into my bedroom, the outcome could have been different.
Young Erstwhile Paramedic (having just been dispatched to an "Urban Camper" who the cops were trying to remove from the lawn of a motel): Good afternoon, Sir. I am a young erstwhile paramedic, who has been called to assist you. How may I be of assistance?
Drunk Urban Camper: I been shittin' blood for two days!
YEP:Ah, I see. Here, let me help you into the ambulance.
<Stagger, stagger, stagger>
This is what the fortune might look like. Other fortunes:
I think that to some extent, all EMS blogs dance around the privacy issue. Some bloggers go way out of their way to obfuscate the details of their professional life to maintain patient privacy, and some don't. Especially in a small town, trying to maintain some sort of storytelling while keeping a professional distance is extremely hard. Now, not only can you not name the patient, you can't even provide enough details for anyone to pick out one patient from another.
One thing I've noticed in this bidness is the glaring polarity of my patients.Their reactions to circumstances can often be found at the very ends of the spectrum.
We're on the South side of the bay, checking out some visiting Canadian warships, hoping to finagle a tour. But, we get interrupted by the radio, dispatching us to an "assist the police" call on the other side of the harbor on one of the docks.