Stepping Back to Step Forward

With my decision to go back to the street more than two years in the rear view mirror, I got thinking the other day about what it has all meant to me.  The system that I came from had a relatively high rate of turnover for supervisors.  I was there for twelve years and the group of five full-time supervisors that were employed there in their position the day that I left were a completely different batch than the one that was there on the day that I got hired.

Every supervisor obviously went somewhere.  A few went up in the company, a few went down, and many moved on to another service.  All of them stayed in the field though.  To me, that shows the level of dedication and love for the field that everyone who put on a “white shirt” shared.  We wanted to be there, and wanted to do whatever we could to make things work.

Life after supervision is not always easy.  With no system being perfect, it is almost second nature at this point in my career to look and try and find a solution.  That is where I find myself jerking my own reins because as we so commonly see in this industry, what is good for the goose is not always good for the gander.  That is to say, what works in one system does not always work for the industry as a whole.

And then there is the overall focus of my day.  At peak in my old job, I was responsible for close to twenty five ambulances.  At any given time, from the chatter on the radio, I could tell you what just about everyone was up to, and who was on the truck.  After a while, it became second nature to me.  In fact, I felt like it was a necessity.  Each crew out there had their own unique set of problems and challenges that they would have to deal with and although I was not nearly as successful as I would have liked to have been in solving those problems, I would like to think that I did okay some of the time.

Now, my focus is narrowed significantly.  I have a partner.  I have a medic unit.  And I have one patient at a time that I am expected to take care of.  In a lot of ways it is nice to be focusing almost 100% on medicine again, but at the same time I cannot help but keep one ear on the radio and keep track of where everyone is.  Again, it is second nature and one heck of a hard habit to break.

I feel like I went from painting with a roller to using a fine point brush.  As a supervisor, there is a lot of big picture thinking, and making tough decisions that will effect paramedics and EMTs who take care of people.

One thing I do have though is a huge amount of respect for those currently working above me.  I fully recognize and understand that their job is not easy.  The out of sight out of mind thinking of a number of people when it comes to their views of supervision is interesting.  As I have said before, I would spend days on the road where you would rarely hear me on the radio.  That did not mean, however, that my cell phone was not ringing, and my email was not going off.  There is always something that needs to be done.  More times than not, I would go home more exhausted from 12 hours as a supervisor than I ever did after 16+ hours as a paramedic.

Ultimately, I do not regret my decision for a second.  I am enjoying my place in my new system immensely.  There has been a lot of growing and adjusting for me over the past year and a half.  I have had to relearn a lot of things, and adjust to a whole new set of rules and protocols.  A lot of it has taken some time, but it has really worked out for the better.  It just goes to show that a step down is not always a step back in one’s career.