alt Hacker NewsThis is just a danger in the medical profession, but especially for first responder or trauma focused parts.
My BIL is a pretty highly credentialed RN. He was seriously considering quitting a few years ago and was asking me about software dev or IT as a career path. I didn't ask for any stories as that would be disrespectful & insensitive, but he was working in the NICU (intensive care unit for infants) and had transferred in from the ICU.
Medicine is clearly his calling, but even as an outsider I can understand how emotionally draining it would be to have to struggle (and sometimes lose) to save children's lives and then go home to your young family. It's tough to see death and suffering daily, and this is a big struggle for these parts of the medical field.
My BIL ended up transferring to a specialist organ transplant unit. He continues to apply his trauma experience, but doesn't need to see quite as much trauma and death on a daily basis.
Suicide & self-harm/addiction issues are higher, and it's not uncommon at all for people to need to leave the field after a traumatic event. If you aren't in the field or don't know anyone who is, it's easy to gloss over how soul-wrenchingly difficult it is to deal with having to be calm and professional to help people going through trauma. Some of the stuff these folks need to deal with is truly horrific, and it's no wonder that PTSD is fairly common.
Also not surprising that EMS has a bit of a fratty/military culture. The job demands high periods of physical exertion and exposure to stressful and traumatic experiences. I'm glad there are people who do this work, but I very much understand why it is difficult.
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I think this is often where the black humor tend to come into play. But black humor and political correctness are like oil and water, so I imagine it creates an extremely uncomfortable work environment for some people on both sides. Somebody who's PC is probably going to find everybody else beastial, and somebody who's not is probably going to be terrified of the PC types going to HR, social media, or whatever else. This nuance immediately came to mind when this article described the EMTs as fratty, which is probably exactly how this might seem to an outsider who doesn't understand how people can cope with being around extremely depressing scenarios constantly.
I have family in medicine and there were just endless stories that would have had social media in a frenzy if anybody ever shared them. At some point you have to laugh or cry, and one is way more sustainable than the other.
> bit of a fratty/military culture
Wow dismissive... it is true but seems like some outsider doesn't understand the experience and what it takes to hang with them.
I have trouble dealing with EMTs and firefighters. They come off as officious and pushy. They are there to do a thing and duty calls them, and I usually represent a waste of time and effort for them. Yet, they saved my building when someone set fire to it 6.5 years ago. Yes, two weeks into the pandemic lockdown, I was nearly displaced by a huge fire. Officious and pushy tough guys/gals made sure I still had a place to live, and they even kept my electricity on.
Last Tuesday I visited the Police Museum, and I owe another visit to the Hall of Flame firefighting museum. I'm really trying to cultivate a respect for first responders, because they are in my family and in my community.
What first responders really face every day is hostile war-zones in an urban jungle. They go into places where people hate ICE, where assholes are filming and recording and Facebooking them; they go into places where people would rather start fires and put lead into bodies than take them out. They deal with victims who are combative and families who are uncooperative. They deal with uncertainty and chaos and every possible obstacle in their way. Literally, because I was riding a Waymo two weeks ago when it was the only vehicle on a 6-lane stroad to pull over and stop for lights & sirens screaming past! (It also pulled the same stunt for a school bus with flashing lights.)
If you've seen/read The Hunger Games through its conclusion, you may get the journey of Prim after her mother, and how the cruelty of life claimed her as a victim in the end, after all that Katniss had tried to do. Primrose Everdeen is the quintessential paramedic whose mind, family and very life is ruined by her compassionate, merciful vocation.
This is where the volunteer EMT system of my rural hometown is superior to city EMTs.
Effectively people are on call. A radio is passed around amongst the volunteers and it's pretty open (most of my family have been EMTs at one point, and for decades).
Because it's rural, there's not a whole lot of cases needing EMTs, but they do occur. And because there's a rotating schedule and it's not anyone's full time job, it's really easy to say "not to day" or "I need a month".
I don't know how you can translate this into professional EMTs for a city. The best I got is hiring more EMTs and offering more flexible and lenient time off.