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Second Look
Mar. 1st, 2012 05:53 pmThe life of an EMT (or more actually, EMT-B, with B for Basic) is generally not a glamorous one. We sleep through some quiet shifts (hence the occasional reference that we are Earning Money Sleeping, if we're getting paid) and we get calls on the hour, every hour, for our entire shift on others. When we do get calls, we usually give them oxygen, handle some physical traumas through bandages and splints, and occasionally perform CPR, if it's called for.
That's about it, really — it's part of the reason that medics and more medically trained personnel derisively refer to EMTs as ambulance drivers.
We're not authorized to give medicine or to start IVs, to start; all of that's handled by the paramedics and above. We're there mostly to stabilize and assess, and serve as the medical first line of defense for anyone that might have encountered a medical issue and can't respond to it themselves. Functionally, a lot of the time, we'll show up, assess a patient, and then either drive them to the hospital or stand around awkwardly, waiting for the medics to arrive, with their EKGs and IVs and the things that actually make a medical difference.
Granted, it's not to say that anyone can do it — there is a minimum requirement of at least a hundred classroom hours (and usually more), which is a fairly significant amount. The situations we walk into are often tense for multiple reasons, and there are definitely cases where EMTs make a difference. And, of course, we do actually save lives from time to time, because there are things that the general population can't do (especially under pressure) that we can do, are trained to do, and probably have much more experience in doing.
To be fair, though, CPR doesn't work as often as people might think, given the media's treatment of it as the sort of magic way to bring people back from the dead. But that's probably a story for another time.
One of the biggest ways that we are able to effect change, though, comes from a completely separate — but no less important — responsibility, one that took up an entire chapter in our textbook. You see, in the United States, every single state has a law that designates medical professionals (and many other groups) as having a duty to report child abuse and neglect. As an EMT, we're often the only people that ever even see a child in a case like this, because the abuser will often try and shield them from the medical community — they don't ever take them to the hospital, and we're often called only when the case is fairly severe, and the child legitimately needs some medical care, but even then, the abuser will try and refuse (which they are legally allowed to do, as they are the legal decision-making adult).
But as long as we're called, we're generally able to take a look at the child, and this is where the responsibility comes in. There are some things to look out for, of course, that are fairly obvious — small round burns, from cigarettes, regular patterns, from a hot stove, or a 'glove' like burn, from scalding water. But more discreet are the psychological signs; after being close to hurt children for a while, we get to be pretty good at identifying how they should be reacting and how they shouldn't.
With calls for children, there's always a heightened amount of alertness, a special notice that everyone on the team will casually exchange with each other in a glance or two before we walk in the front door. There's no change on the outside, of course, because anything we do obviously would alert the abuser and that's something that we can't afford, but I could tell you the details of some of the houses I've been in better than my own, even after being there once, for ten minutes. That's what this responsibility means to us.
This is usually where the actual story starts, but unfortunately, that's not something that I can do for this entry; their right to privacy is simply too high for me to say anything, really. After all, these are children, with the rest of their lives ahead of them, and nothing I say should ever go back and haunt them. And of course, in this situation, there is no way to get consent.
All I can say is that my time as an EMT wasn't always glamorous, or even acknowledged by others in the medical community, but I've seen firsthand that it makes a difference. We save lives from time to time, but it never, ever means more than when we can make a correct report, and get a followup from youth services or the police later, and know that we've saved someone from abuse.
That's about it, really — it's part of the reason that medics and more medically trained personnel derisively refer to EMTs as ambulance drivers.
We're not authorized to give medicine or to start IVs, to start; all of that's handled by the paramedics and above. We're there mostly to stabilize and assess, and serve as the medical first line of defense for anyone that might have encountered a medical issue and can't respond to it themselves. Functionally, a lot of the time, we'll show up, assess a patient, and then either drive them to the hospital or stand around awkwardly, waiting for the medics to arrive, with their EKGs and IVs and the things that actually make a medical difference.
Granted, it's not to say that anyone can do it — there is a minimum requirement of at least a hundred classroom hours (and usually more), which is a fairly significant amount. The situations we walk into are often tense for multiple reasons, and there are definitely cases where EMTs make a difference. And, of course, we do actually save lives from time to time, because there are things that the general population can't do (especially under pressure) that we can do, are trained to do, and probably have much more experience in doing.
To be fair, though, CPR doesn't work as often as people might think, given the media's treatment of it as the sort of magic way to bring people back from the dead. But that's probably a story for another time.
One of the biggest ways that we are able to effect change, though, comes from a completely separate — but no less important — responsibility, one that took up an entire chapter in our textbook. You see, in the United States, every single state has a law that designates medical professionals (and many other groups) as having a duty to report child abuse and neglect. As an EMT, we're often the only people that ever even see a child in a case like this, because the abuser will often try and shield them from the medical community — they don't ever take them to the hospital, and we're often called only when the case is fairly severe, and the child legitimately needs some medical care, but even then, the abuser will try and refuse (which they are legally allowed to do, as they are the legal decision-making adult).
But as long as we're called, we're generally able to take a look at the child, and this is where the responsibility comes in. There are some things to look out for, of course, that are fairly obvious — small round burns, from cigarettes, regular patterns, from a hot stove, or a 'glove' like burn, from scalding water. But more discreet are the psychological signs; after being close to hurt children for a while, we get to be pretty good at identifying how they should be reacting and how they shouldn't.
With calls for children, there's always a heightened amount of alertness, a special notice that everyone on the team will casually exchange with each other in a glance or two before we walk in the front door. There's no change on the outside, of course, because anything we do obviously would alert the abuser and that's something that we can't afford, but I could tell you the details of some of the houses I've been in better than my own, even after being there once, for ten minutes. That's what this responsibility means to us.
This is usually where the actual story starts, but unfortunately, that's not something that I can do for this entry; their right to privacy is simply too high for me to say anything, really. After all, these are children, with the rest of their lives ahead of them, and nothing I say should ever go back and haunt them. And of course, in this situation, there is no way to get consent.
All I can say is that my time as an EMT wasn't always glamorous, or even acknowledged by others in the medical community, but I've seen firsthand that it makes a difference. We save lives from time to time, but it never, ever means more than when we can make a correct report, and get a followup from youth services or the police later, and know that we've saved someone from abuse.
