Cleaning Up Messes

Question: What do you do when you find yourself confronted by an endless parade of complaints from crews, as well as patients, about one of your paramedics? The complaints never seem to be about anything major, but something about him bothers you as well. You just get the impression he doesn't like people.

Answer: That happens sometimes. It takes a lot more than a big brain and good hands to make a good paramedic. Those things will get a person through paramedic school, but I think it takes something else--emotional intelligence--to actually do what a paramedic does well.

Emotional intelligence has been discussed for about 60 years in the business and social science literature. It could be described as social intuition, and I believe its absence is the reason why you can't just assign any old body to be a paramedic. I think it's also the reason why no selection process identifies good paramedics more consistently than interviews by panels of good paramedics.

I read about a study at Berkeley during the 1950s that measured the IQs of 80 doctoral scientists. They were contacted 40 years later to find out how successful they had been in life (using resumes, testimonials from peers, publications, etc).¹ The authors concluded that, by any measure, our social and emotional gifts are four times more powerful than our cognitive intelligence as predictors of our success in life.

Daniel Goleman published two books on emotional intelligence in the late 1990s. They're not easy reads. But a Google search on "emotional intelligence" will produce more than 2,250,000 other resources on the subject. You can even take an EIQ test online. It'll occupy about 20 minutes, and afterward you'll receive a score and an overview of its implications. The publisher, Queendom, will charge you a nominal fee if you want a detailed report, but the "snapshot" version is free.

I would never oversimplify the whole process of choosing the right people. But some folks simply have no business working in an ambulance. We all know they're messy. I'm going to try this and see if it helps our agency to identify them in advance. I'll let you know how it works out.

Meanwhile, you could be thinking about it.

References

1. Cherniss C. Emotional Intelligence: What It Is and Why It Matters. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, New Orleans, LA, April 15, 2000. www.eiconsortium.org/research/what_is_emotional_intelligence.htm.

2. www.queendom.com/tests/access_page/index.htm?idRegTest=1121.

Thom Dick has been involved i n EMS for 37 years, 23 of them as a full-time EMT and paramedic in San Diego County. He is the quality care coordinator for Platte Valley Ambulance Service, a community-owned, hospital-based 9-1-1 provider in Brighton, CO. Thom is also a member of EMS Magazine's editorial advisory board. Reach him at boxcar_414@yahoo.com.