Spotlight: EMS Captain on Saving Lives and Being Human
And we call them heroes. And we also call them friends and spouses and sons and daughters. And today I want to start a discussion on Swell with Emily Anderson, and I want to talk about being trained to help people. And I know that sounds simplistic, but I want to discuss the nature of those people who are called to help, who are called to serve, who are called to save lives, even if it risks their own
Emily Anderson
@ekanderson9 · 2:16
Hi, Deborah. Okay. First thing I'm fine. I am good. I'm probably like a lot of people in this business now I'm tired and know that this is more of a marathon now than a sprint, but that's another answer. I knew I wanted to do this work. After banging my head against the wall for a couple of years, I was doing exciting work in engineering, and it still wasn't exciting enough. So I knew I had to do something else
I think one day when you have time, you'll do a memoir, maybe of that process you went through of elimination or of deep soul consultation to figure out what that calling was. And then when you found it, there was no turning back. I'm just saying this because I think people are always looking for a process to figure out what they're calling is. And there's millions of books written about it
Emily Anderson
@ekanderson9 · 2:15
When you suddenly ask just one question and they give you other answer that shifts everything different, and you stop what you're doing going down this treatment train and you realize you got to go down this one. It can be frustrating for a lot of people, but you realize, as you become a better medic, a more experienced medic that you learn to paint a picture with a more complete picture with just a few key questions that give you a broad outline
And now that you're a captain, I'm sure you are looking at this head on. How do you train around group dynamic, where the collaborative spirit is so critical and deep quick listening is so critical because someone might have an intuition that you might not have? And is everybody always in rank? Or do people break rank when there's something that has to happen or a decision has to be made? And someone has a hunch that someone didn't think about? Like, how does collaboration work?
Emily Anderson
@ekanderson9 · 3:53
And I also think for lack of a better term, EMS requires balls, and it requires you to have the balls to make decisions, stand by them, be able to justify them not only on scene, maybe with your coworkers and your colleagues, with family members, but also you could have upwards of 15 people in a hospital room as you're transferring care that have over 100 years of combined experience. And you need to justify why you did what you did on scene, and that comes with experience
I want to ask about profiling for a minute in terms of first assumptions. And I'm going to take this to a very personal level. I know somebody who passed away, who was a young man, and it was from a medical condition. But when the paramedics saw him and they brought him in, there was lots of talk about how they treated him because he was tatted from a lot of tattoos. And they made some assumptions about what might have been wrong with him
Emily Anderson
@ekanderson9 · 1:53
These questions change dramatically as to what kind of team needs to be in the Er when you show up, you need to get a good story. You are a Detective as a paramedic and you're painting a picture. And sometimes in order to not have the story go in a direction that can wind up hurting that patient. The trick is to just focus on what you need to do clinically, because most paramedics, they're not the kind of person to sit back and watch things unfold
So what you're describing is really like, the life of a paramedic, what they have to deal with every day. And I just wanted to get a sense of routine. And what it's like for somebody to wake up as a transfer paramedic in San Francisco, because that's where you are. So let's speak from where, you know, can you give me a little run down of, like, first of all, how long are the shifts? And what's a shift like
Emily Anderson
@ekanderson9 · 0:21
So has as someone who has made her way, not so graciously into the out of the field and into the office, I'm going to punt to two of my colleagues who I also consider to be personal friends and who have deep respect for his paramedics, who are in the field and I feel are better equipped to answer this question
Jen Warren
@jenwarren · 2:25
Hey there. My name is Jen. Thank you for the invite. M. I've been a transport medic in the city for about four years. I've been a medic for about seven, answering the question of what's the day and the life like. Our shifts are with the Department of 12 hours. I'm currently on a. 06:00 a.m. Start. Three days a week, one week, four days. The next is usually how it alternates. I consider myself to be new
Carla Beyer
@cbeyer7 · 2:26
Hey, Em. Hi, Deb, thank you for including me in your conversation in response to the question about routine and what it's like to be a paramedic, how long our shifts are and where they like, we actually work the twelve hour shift us we go to station, we check out stock or ambulance
Because healthcare is on the ballot this year, and it's always on the ballot every year at the local, state and federal level, we're always wondering how we can make the system work together more interdependently, where what the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. Now that you all three, excuse me, are in the system and you're doing your part. Do you have a perspective on healthcare that you want to see rolled out? That's not already in the works
Jen Warren
@jenwarren · 1:15
So I think a lot of our emergency calls end up being some sort of chronic issue instead, kind of a Med refill or somebody's presenting poorly today because they haven't it's taken their meds in a while. They're just incapable of doing it. A lot of our code three licenses and other responses end up being for something that is kind of a chronic health issue or separately, mental health and drug addiction. And those two things oftentimes go hand in hand
Emily Anderson
@ekanderson9 · 2:38
Would you not agree, Jen and Carla, that we're dealing with an Indigenous population and there are EMS systems out there that work and they're working well. Granted, they might be in a culture that values things other than what we do, things like taking pride in civic duty and in contributing to society in general. I'm not saying that our patients don't do that, but I think a lot of our patients buy into the fact that they are literally human garbage
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:24
Jen, Emily, both bring up such a specific and clear point that there are huge problems in the system. Obviously, we have this chronic repetitive situation where you might see the same and people the same scenarios play out in front of you again and again and again, and you're just there to serve. And it's your duty. And you can't go in the evening and sit in some community meeting to lobby for a change. You're too busy doing the work
Carla Beyer
@cbeyer7 · 2:23
There are so many times that I've tried to follow up on a patient that I've dropped off to the Er but was told by the nurse that a doctor that HIPAA was a thing in which we were not able to find out more about what has happened from the patient or to the patient. After we dropped them off. We see these patients in their environment, in their houses, in their apartments, in the streets, with their friends, with their families, with bystanders
Emily Anderson
@ekanderson9 · 1:10
Deb. In answer to your question, I actually have a definitive no, I have not done enough research. I haven't actually done enough travel to other towns and cities, both domestically and internationally, to see not only what's working swell well, but what the conditions are that make the system work well. And if those conditions are something that we can replicate here, or if the system itself is applicable here. So I think we have a lot of homework to do
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:04
I know the gas company and electrical company tell you here's what you can do in your home to make things better. Is there something that you guys would like us to know to make life better? So that when we need you, it's a better situation because that might be helpful to all of us to be a partner in what you guys doing and help things have more success
Carla Beyer
@cbeyer7 · 2:04
Perhaps a simple piece of paper with the patient's name, their birthday, their medical history, allergies to medications, and even the patient's hospital of choice or who their primary doctor is can cut down on our scene times. We often have to play Detective, and having this pertinent information readily available can make our job a lot easier if other patient has a DNR. A. Do not resuscitate order or a post the physicians orders for life sustaining treatment
And my neighbors called the paramedics, and they knew very little about me, actually, Ironically, because I had just sort of moved in a couple of years ago, and we just still hadn't connected. It was one of those weird. I mean, they knew me socially a lot, but they didn't know anything about me deeply. And how much should we share with our neighbors? What's the most critical information our neighbors should have about us?
Carla Beyer
@cbeyer7 · 1:25
That's a great question. Deb and I will respond with share as much that feels comfortable for you. I feel like we are more disconnected with our communities than we were in past years. Our population has just just grown so much. But as a kid, I remember our family exchanging emergency contact numbers and house keys with our closest neighbor. If someone has a condition that requires immediate medication, they suffer from, let's say, severe allergic reactions, and they carry an EpiPen with them