Two Views: Your Work Matters

Two Views is a new column from veteran EMS technologist and critic Jonathon Feit that examines current industry issues from the perspectives of both frontline personnel and leadership/management.

For this column, let’s disregard the intellectual engines of mobile medicine: politics, protocols, medicine, money, data, interoperability, and law. We’ll focus instead on the profession’s emotional kernel—the commitment that keeps you going for 72 hours. Because amid all the BS that floats through our daily discourse about the future of our profession, you need to know that your efforts are worthwhile. 

We recently celebrated Mother’s and Father’s Days. Many people feel these days deeply, not only out of love and celebration but because of loss too. We recall the joy of tossing a ball around the backyard; racing home from a house of worship or from dinner, thrilled those little legs can finally keep up; or the uncommon school afternoon playing hooky because “one day off won’t kill you.” They are also days to remember the times when no one made it to the game because duty called—but as children we did not yet understand. 

The Crew View

FOMO (fear of missing out) is not the sole province of the young. It haunts parents who wish they could do nothing more than hug their littles when the world proves jagged and harsh. But your steadfastness is their comfort. 

Sometimes the joyful prism shatters. We watch innocent children—the living embodiment of promise, of all that’s worth living for—killed by tumors because we invested in garbage instead of medicine; starved in bombed villages and along refugee roads; or snuffed out by GSWs, tearing the fabric of faith. Nature will take its course, but we set our priorities and make our choices. Our sins are shared. Those who are watching us learn.

Who runs toward the crisis? You do. When we go to work—serving those who serve requires keeping similar hours­—we regret that the fun will be relegated to photos, but we do more than bring home a paycheck that pays for dinner and recitals and college. You show what it means to prioritize other over self. As the rabbinical mantra says, “Whoever kills one life kills the world entire, and whoever saves one life saves the world.” By the time this column crosses your eyes, you will have raised universes where they fell in the bathroom. You will have ripped universes out of burning vehicles. You will have resuscitated universes and comforted universes’ closest kin when their loved ones died. It all matters. But you have done something more, which you may not have realized in the moment.

Management Memo

In a past life, my scientific focus was neuroscience (our company’s name, Beyond Lucid, pays homage to my research). There are few more objectively fascinating processes than the way the mind ingests and adapts. Neuroplasticity. Nerve centers attuned to language and syntax. Memories and dreams. Children learning by osmosis. Anyone who has ever accidentally slipped an obscenity near a young person, only to have it repeated back, knows they are listening to everything. Our morals and ethics. How we love, celebrate, and cope. It may be controversial, but there is little question why wealth and success tend to either follow or diverge along generational lines: We either emulate our parents’ lessons or reject them—in all cases, we react to them. 

We replicate what worked, or we forge a path that is perpendicular to the failures of our forebears. For instance, my father’s entrepreneurial commitment kept him awake until the wee hours nightly. His health was the price for his astonishing work ethic. But there was an upside: I will treasure the memories of sitting at the kitchen table with him, well past bedtime, doing homework or learning to read and write. I now do my best work in the dark and may have been ahead of my time as the “segmented sleep” model gains traction.¹ But I am also stricter with my children, implementing limits on their sleep schedule to protect them long-term. 

One clear takeaway from our collective social insanity now is that the world is incontrovertibly connected. Someone sees your work, even if you don’t realize it. Your kids, parents, neighbors, friends, colleagues, patients, and those who receive them at the hospital. Your life and work are consequential—they create ripples that extend far past your view.  

Reference

1. Barron J. Letter of Recommendation: Segmented Sleep. New York Times Magazine. Published March 31, 2016. www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-segmented-sleep.html

Jonathon S. Feit, MBA, MA, is cofounder and CEO at Beyond Lucid Technologies and a frequent contributor to multiple EMS platforms. Visit www.beyondlucid.com.