The Midlife Medic: Make Me Laugh

“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”

—John A. Shedd

Welcome to 2017. It’s a new year and a time for fresh starts. Time to get rid of everything that’s bad for you. No more sugar or alcohol, dust off that card for the gym and, oh, quit your job.

Everything that’s bad for you. If your job is killing you, why do you still do it?

It isn’t? Are you sure? Because honestly, pretty much everything I read about EMS says it is destroying you both mentally and physically. Oh, and your loved ones as well. It’s obviously a terrible idea, and we should stop doing it before more people get hurt. At the very least put a caution label on the patch that says, Surgeon General’s warning: Working in EMS can be hazardous to your health. Quitting now decreases your risks for heart disease, stroke and certain types of cancer. (That last part is true.)

EMS-related media is a treasure trove of information, a pirate’s chest filled with junk jewelry mixed with priceless artifacts. It is a colorful patois of emerging science, prudent philosophy and immature nonsense. But threaded throughout those millions of lines of text, links and photos is an emerging picture of what emergency services in the 21st century looks like.

What you find is a profession struggling for identity, pushing out from beneath the weight of the fire service and seeking to establish itself as unique in its role in public health and the emergency services. Unable to coalesce and agree on much of anything, it clings to antiquated models and outdated treatments that hobble its ability to move forward. It is a thankless, physically exhausting, mentally challenging, psychologically risky venture that offers little in the way of security or long-term opportunity.

Am I exaggerating? Maybe a little, not much. Don’t believe me? Tread the virtual boards and see what is being talked about internally. Exhaustion, poverty, lack of respect and the long-term effects of the job both physically and mentally are all at the forefront.

Also at the forefront are the people coming forward with their pain. They talk about calls that haunt them, scenes they can never dismiss, what the worst thing you’ve ever seen means and all manner of physical and emotional devastation that have driven them to mask their pain, leave the field, leave their loved ones or even make attempts on their own lives. Every day a new admission bubbles up, carrying hard images that are difficult to process.

Is EMS in danger of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy by teaching its initiates they are doomed to a similar fate? If our media footprint is dominated by negative images and emotional wreckage, what are we telling those young, idealistic minds who are our future? I am just as guilty—my daughter said to me recently, “Mommy, you write such beautiful stories about work, but they are all so sad!” She’s right—some of my most poignant memories involve calls that are so savage or heartbreaking they can be painful to write, much less read.

I am not downplaying the need for awareness, training and intervention when it comes to the mental health of first responders. The progress we’ve made in this arena is invaluable and needs to continue. The concept of resiliency should be included as a primary component in all aspects of emergency response training. As an industry we need to prepare people better than we have been, and there has been definite progress.

To foster that strength and develop that resilience, then, we also share a simpler message, one that goes beyond the science and socioeconomics. One that simply speaks to the human condition.

That this is a good job.

It is a privilege to be able to help someone in their time of need, not to mention good for your karma. Don’t qualify the need or destroy the satisfaction it can bring you when they aren’t sick enough or it’s not exciting enough. Talk to people and let them amaze you while you help them back into bed or calm their fears.

Don’t rush it or worry—when the time comes you will do remarkable things, I promise. Until then treat each call as a snapshot, a sliver of time that will eventually become part of the colorful mosaic that is your career.

You will work with some of the best people you will ever meet. You will laugh—loudly, inappropriately and, if you are lucky, every damn day you come to work.

When the time comes that you cry, because you will, know there will always be someone who understands why. Don’t turn them away. The pain is in the I, the help is in the we. 

This is a good job.

Nietzsche said if you stare into any abyss long enough, it will stare back at you. Stop staring at it—it will never change. Keep your joy, find your passion and realize that our strength is in looking at the abyss without blinking and saying, “Show me what else you got.”

I would like to hear what makes you laugh. Our brand of humor does not always translate well to the public, but it sure makes sense to us. I’ll start—here’s one I got from a paramedic in Texas when we were talking at a conference last year.

“Well, we were trying to extricate him from his horse, but see, my partner’s a taxidermist, and the horses don’t like him—he smells like death.”

Show me what else you got, people, and let’s have a great year.