I Don't Write About Work but. . .

I don’t write about work. A reader noticed this the other day and wondered why. I have a feeling that some people would think that the most exciting thing about me, the most exciting thing I could possibly write about in my blog is my job. Perhaps they are right. I’m sure most people would much rather read an account of my latest adventures in the world of emergency medical services than in the spiritual encounters with my creator, or how I sing when I do mundane things like going grocery shopping. Somedays, I too would rather publish a post on “the funniest patient I had the other day. . .” or my observations on hospital hallways or a commentary on recent EMS political events. I could confidently say that if you were to put a sheet of paper in front of me right now I could effortlessly list at least 20 different EMS blog topics that I would love to comment on. However, for a few reasons I do not. 

The first and arguably most important factor in this decision is that it is not safe. There is of course, the matter of legality when it comes to trying to recreate certain calls that, even if you were to change the date, place, time, and name of your patient, you open yourself up to the possibility that someone could accuse you of breaching confidentiality. It can be done, mind you, as the revolving door of EMS blogs on the web can attest, but it seems like a lot of work for a lot of risk to me. Sadly, though, that is not even my worst fear when I think of safety. Truth be told, like most of my fellow co-workers, I have a lot of opinions on a lot of things related to my industry - some very mainstream and some that would be considered radical. At one time I would not hesitate to write and publish these thoughts. However, I feel that the EMS political climate at this point in time is not particularly conducive to free-thinking. I can console myself with the fact that “EMS is EMS everywhere you go” which translates to mean that no matter where you are working, who you are working with or what is happening in the politics, your high level of knowledge and patient care should remain the same. Put your patient first and be the best you can be regardless of the circumstances. Unfortunately, consoling myself with this fact would be of little use if I suddenly found myself without a place to practice it.

The second reason is that I find EMS fascinating. Much too fascinating. I blame it on the first day of EMR class when my instructor taught me how to MacGuyver a flutter valve after decompressing someone’s chest - something far, far out of my scope at that level, but I was hooked. I wanted to keep learning things that were “above” me. This was good at the time and for many of the years following. However, I now also think that there comes a time when you can become over-saturated. A sponge that is filled with water needs to be wrung out sometimes if we expect it to be able to absorb more. To prevent being over-saturated, I try now to make a greater effort to separate “me” from “my job”. Part of this means I don’t want to get caught up in writing about EMS all the time, it would be way too easy. So that is why you instead get to read about other non-EMS thoughts and events. 

And if there was a third reason it would be because I would forever be editing my EMS short-hand into normal English! Go back and count how many times I used the word “patient” in this post and that is how many times I had to go back and change “pt.” to “patient”. Blah!

After all that explaining however, I have been inspired to do a quick series on some things I have learned from EMS. No, you will not find war stories, political opinions, or instructions on flutter valves. You may not find them exciting at all. It's just going to be some wholesome thoughts that I may not have considered if it wasn’t for my profession. Stay tuned.