I recently spoke with a close friend who related to me a story of a very difficult call that she had to deal with. Without getting too into detail, she was presented with a young child who was in a very difficult and seemingly hopeless situation. My friend’s “motherly instinct” kicked in when the child latched onto not her family, not her mother, but my friend.
From listening to the story and everything my friend did, which was not much more than consoling the child and establishing a rapport with her, I could not help but be amazed with the job done by my EMT friend. This was not an acute medical emergency it was actually nothing more than just a simple transport to an emergency room. Still though, my friend broke down and couldn’t help but question herself and her ability to do her job as an EMT.
In actuality though, she did exactly what she had to do: she stayed calm and did everything someone in her position could for the child: she was supportive and she was an advocate for her, and while after the fact she had trouble dealing with the situation, while it was ongoing, she was as professional as anyone could be.
A few days before, I assisted a crew who had a patient unexpectedly get combative on them. While the scuffle in the back of the truck could have gotten bad, the crew handled themselves as efficiently as any crew I had seen in such a situation. Within 5 minutes of the patient getting combative, he was properly restrained to the stretcher without a scratch on him and wearing a non-rebreather to prevent him from spitting at anyone.
Again, here was a situation where emotions got high and things could have quickly escalated out of control with one wrong move or one wrong word. The crew, however, kept as cool a head as possible and handled the situation perfectly.
This brings us to the point of this post: no matter what happens, and no matter what the call nature is, one sign of a strong EMT is their ability to put their emotions aside, or as much of their emotions as possible, and deal with the emergency at hand no matter how big or small. No matter how much we may want to scream as somebody or cry and get upset there is a job to do. People count on us to bring order to chaos, and letting ourselves get chaotic and out of control prevents that before we even have a chance to make it happen.
We all have instincts that we revert back to whether they be motherly, protective, or driven by self-preservation. Sometimes though we need to suppress those and work against them until the time is right to let them come through. Reacting to a stressful situation is human nature, and as a provider of prehospital care, sometimes our own personal human nature, and with it our own needs, need to be put aside.
What you read above in those two stories are two perfect examples of people who had that ability. In one example it was a patient who tugged at emotional heart strings. In the other, it was a patient who could have quickly and easily gotten under many of our skins. Remember that when you are with a patient, their needs and emotions come before yours. Providing for those needs to the best of your ability in a calm and rational manner is essential if you want to be a strong patient care provider.