Introducing: Mamie Webber, paramedic, maniac, and guest blogger for the day

I've known Mamie for six years now, but it feels like a lot longer (that's not a bad thing, Mames).  I guess when you practically live with a group of people for 4 straight years you get to know them pretty well, and even better when it's an extremely high-stress environment that is also extremely dysfunctional.  Mamie said her guest posting would be a rant, but I think it's too sweet and under-exaggerated to be a rant. Don't worry, she promised better for next time. : )


-kk

Dance With Me…

          Becoming a partner in EMS is a dance. Your classroom tells you the steps. Your first job is all about taking those steps and putting them into practice on the dance floor, …our ambulance, our scenes.      


         As we learn how the steps actually fit together we become more confident, and we learn the dance routines. Every call or shift is a different dance. Like the dance for an arrest…. It has to be quick, fast, and together or we stumble. The steps are unique to each person. Same dance music, but what is their style? Are they stiff, precise, scared, or are they loose, fluid, confident?


         There are also the dances we learn with our various services we work with, whether it’s the weekly on-call crew we “live” with or other crews in a mutual aid situation or a new partner, a new boss…


          Learning the steps is hard work. It’s never easy at first. Frustration at each other can well up and overflow. Sometimes it’s frustration with ourselves. The cause of it can be anything from being a newbie to the profession, the newbie at the service we’re at, or the service operation itself. All these new people and different personalities and we have to learn how all of them do their job, sometimes before we can figure out how to do our own job.


         Eventually we get the steps down. It can happen subtly without us knowing just when it happened. It can be like a light bulb going off. It can be one lesson at a time. We may learn we can do IV’s flawlessly if we just stop thinking about it, what meds to give without agonizing over our decisions… Maybe it’s the day we automatically know what to do on any given scene without being asked or told. It can be the night where we know just what questions to ask our patient instead of wondering how to talk to them.


         And you realize it doesn't matter how you move it, you just gotta dance. 


Peace. Mamie