The WORD, Perception, Emergent Medical Services and Ambulance Drivers

Dave, over at the Social Medic is weighing in on this little brou-ha-ha over the term “Ambulance Driver”. So is Kelly Grayson and others so I guess I hit a nerve. GOOD! That’s what I’m here for aren’t I? My only agenda, oft repeated, is to promote medics seeing themselves as being part of a Bigger Picture. Really, what a ridiculously outrageous a thing to ask of you! Dave starts off with:

It seems Captain Chair Confessions has some bloggers in a frenzy over a post where he basically tells everyone to get over being called an “ambulance driver”.

EMS Outside Agitator rolled over in the proverbial professional grave and declared that there are no ambulance drivers in the Emergent Medical Services.

Medic 51 was aghast at the horror of accepting the title because of blood, sweat, and tears put in to gain the knowledge and earn the patch.

And then… as if on cue… I read a story from EMS1.com titled UK boy “dies after ambulance crew’s sat nav broke”. Sat nav being short for satellite navigation which is the same or equal to the Global Positioning Systems (GPS) used today in the United States.

First of all, reports of my death have been slightly exagerrated. Though the grave is “proverbial”, in my attempt to attain rigor mortis, I have not flip-flopped in my coffin. That day will come soon enough!

Let’s start by saying the term “Ambulance Driver” is only one small component of the point of what I’m trying to make in much the same way that being drivers of ambulances is only one small component of the role that EMTs and Paramedics play.

Language as a vehicle for building a common perception of reality is a fact of life so let’s at least look at it. In a minute, I’ll give you a great example of how language changed a common perception and that change has defined the work you do today!

My central point is not that we need to bray about how we’re a profession (which we’re really not for reasons covered in my blog) but at this point, we haven’t even got the word out that we want to be!

I appreciate Kelly’s humility because really, this is all “just a job”. AND, who’s Kelly talking to? It’s us.

When he gets introduced to speak, however, at sessions with the general public, I hope it’s not as an ambulance driver, or “America’s Favorite Ambulance Driver”, but as the writer of “A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver” which he makes clear. I don’t experience him as someone who is furthering the public’s impression of us as being nothing more than “Hacks”.

Once again, I have zero quibble with his choice of words for himself precisely because, as has been mentioned and truly does count for a lot, he walks a professional walk. Besides, that’s his “Brand”! It works for EMS as a whole, and I probably need to see what Kelly’s up to in his presentations to the public-at-large befiore I say anything more.

What we say to each other is one thing. But something is amiss because the message that the public has gotten is that we’re there when you need to get out of an uncomfortable situation and NOT that we’re there when you really need us. Who’s fault is that, I have to ask?

Language IS important and I’m sorry, on that end we’re setting ourselves up for marginalization in a vital protection agency that is going to demand more and more from us as medical generalists with a specialty in handling emergent situations.

Dave says: “So if someone wants to call me an Ambulance Driver, I’m okay with that. Not because I have low self-esteem like EMS Outside Agitator seems to think… but because it’s an aspect of my profession. In fact, if you really thought about it, it’s probably the most VITAL aspect of it.”

I’m fine if you and everyone else is okay with calling yourselves that, but I think you are minimizing yourself and that troubles me a little because you deserve better. I beleive you’ve lost perspective and, as I said in my blog “allowed” the agencies that control you to control you because you have not claimed your own value to the community. It’s time to claim it..

We are specialists in Intervention. It once seemed to be Medical but things have changed. We’re  stuck in the Hellish place of having to cope with people in true need to get somewhere, but the only place to bring them is ERs and the only people to take them are us. They deserve more outlets; we can help them to get them, but not as ambulance drivers. We’re going to have to become professionals that lobby for change in the systems that serve the populace.

And transportation, though once the definitive aspect of Emergency Medical Services, is simply no longer the “most VITAL aspect of it.”.

It’s true, a couple of British medics couldn’t read a  map so the issue of whether or not they’re paramedics is moot; they couldn’t even be decent hacks! Their failure was in one aspect of delivering the service. It was critical and defined the efficacy of everything else they could offer under those circumstances, but isn’t our job juggling many different things to make a difference in people’s lives?

They failed as professionals because professionals must deal with and master each and every aspect of the things they’re trained to do.

And, by the way, how many agencies do you know that actually train their medics how to drive an ambulance? It isn’t even in the curricula. Sorry, but I’ll continue to wince at the term.

What would happen, if only for a little while, like a few years – We did something like this:

Back in the 1960′s, the American National Red Cross along with other allied agencies like the Scouts wanted to change the perception that the public had about people stricken by illness or injury. The common word for such people was “Victims”. That didn’t do justice for anyone and ESPECIALLY for those who were called upon to help. The victim remained a victim all the way to the hospital!

I recall what amounted to a publicity campaign where articles showed up all over (Reader’s Digest and the like) specifically reporting that “victim” was no longer proper language to describe the stricken. The proper word was now “patient”.

I guess the campaign worked because you probably never thought of your patients in any other way! And how much did the change of that little word affect the work you do? What does that tell the public about what it is you do? Victim is about disaster relief. Patient is injury under treatment, an assertion that the person is under the care of medical personnel. They may be a victim before you get there, but once you arrive, that’s a patient.

So what if we helped get articles published that spoke of what we do in terms of reality? What if we educated the populace on the proper use of Emergency Services? What if Paramedics and EMTs became faces speaking to the public about how we need help to help them best?

Oh, but I almost forgot; I’m dreaming! We still only have one place to bring patients and we haven’t established educational standards high enough to grant us credibility when we ask to design Emergent Medical Systems that work for the people AND us.

I dunno, maybe I’m nuts, but I’ve been saying since about 1975 if ambulance drivers want to build this mess into a real profession they’re going to have to make it happen for themselves. They’re going to have to re-create themselves from the ground up. They’re going to have to change how they are percieved or nothing will change.

Something I might have missed, and re-reading Kelly’s R-E-S-P-E-C-T blog it dawned on me that I wasn’t thining in terms of Correcting anyone when they called me an ambulance driver. I was thinking in terms of making the effort to correct that image in the public’s eyes so I wouldn’t have to any more.

Can you see the difference?