What do you remember from your classes?

I know this kind of counters my last post, after my little rant, but I was thinking about something after my last call (an EMS for a fall victim, not unexpected when you've accumulated as much snow as has happened in the last few hours here) and I realized how each one of us seems to have a certain trait they come out of training with.

Mine is that regardless of the patient, or the complaint, legitimate or BS, need for an ambulance or not, that the one thing that I truly took to heart when I took my EMT class was that a good provider should be an advocate for your patient. I don't care if you have yelled at me, spit at me, swore you would kill me if the cop didn't have you restrained. I will still fight for you. I recently had a patient who did nothing but complain the entire trip to the hospital about how bumpy it was, how long it took, how hot it was, how uncomfortable she was. But when we got to the hospital and I had to wait 15 minutes for a room when there were only 3 beds occupied in the ER, I had quite the heated discussion with that shift's particular charge nurse. She had personally looked at me 3 times in that 15 minutes and never so much asked me what my patient was complaining of so she could decide if she was getting a bed or going to triage. I spoke my mind to her, and, unknown to me, her head of department overheard the discussion. This was not my intention, but I have never had to wait on this particular nurse since then.

So remember, you can call me whatever name you like. You can lie to me, threaten me, or ignore me, but I promise you if you are my patient, I WILL fight for you.

Serve on,
The Public "Servant"