The E-Book is Coming!

OK, I can’t keep this to myself any longer. It’s time for the big announcement. With the final draft still in the mail from my editorial team and the final design still lacking a few details, it would probably be best to just keep this under wraps for a few more weeks, but I can’t wait.

My first E-book is scheduled for release on January 21st, one week from today. The e-book will be free and it will be available right here at The Spot.

The Book is called The Non-Conformists Guide to EMS Success. This book is the culmination of two decades of EMS experiences, mistakes, failures, trials, and errors that lead to my ultimate success. My goal was to write something that would be useful to EMTs at any stage in their career. And I didn’t hold anything back. This is my road map to finding true success and fulfilment in EMS work.

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6 Reasons Why You Should Be a Better EMT

Sure, this site isall about being a better EMT, but perhaps you’ve asked yourself, “Why?” OK, granted, it was probably one of your more cynical moments. Perhaps you had a bad day, a couple of frustrating calls or a less than optimal interaction with a patient, your partner, another agency, your boss … or perhaps all of the above.

Then you went out and threw down your stethoscope. Or maybe you didn’t throw it down because you remembered it was a Littmann and a gift from your aunt, but you raised it over your head and thought about it. And while that stethoscope dangled over your head in your clenched fist you thought, “Why? Why do I work so hard to try to be better at a job that pays so little and offers so little in return?”

“Why?”

We’ve all had these moments. Moments when we contemplated, “Why don’t I just phone it in? The bad EMT’s make the same amount of money as the good ones. I clearly already meet the minimum standard. Nobody’s really pushing me to be any better. Nobody seems to recognize my growth or effort. So why do it?”

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Staked Down With a Twig

Circus elephants present a containment problem. It’s hard to keep a big elephant cage around wherever you go. So when baby circus elephants are trained, they are staked down to a pole with a chain. The young elephants pull and struggle against the chain for a while and then learn the limitations of the situation.

Soon the elephant can be staked down with a wooden stick. The elephant could easily break the confinement but it doesn’t try. It’s already learned what it can and can’t do. To add further insult to the awesome, unrecognized power of the beast, by adulthood many of the elephants can be training to pull up their own stake and move it on command and then remain in the spot that they re-staked themselves too.

I think about the circus elephant staking itself down often. Mostly when I hear my colleagues and friends talk about the obstacles that prevent them from recognizing their goals. You know what I’m talking about. All that stuff we’re waiting for before we can start really moving toward our vision for our life.

When I look at the awesome human potential that we carry around within us and then I consider the little, insignificant things we chose to see as barriers, I think about the elephant.

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Ten Things You Can’t Learn About EMS

                                        From Your Computer

As you might imagine, I’m a big fan of E-learning. I also have a soft spot for the social media craze. But there are still a few things that you just can’t learn staring at a computer screen. OK, there are a LOT of things you can’t learn staring at a computer screen. Here are ten:

1.) You can’t learn pattern recognition.

If you’ve ever wondered about how experienced EMTs and medics can figure out exactly what’s wrong with the patient two steps inside the front door, it’s not magic. It’s pattern recognition. When you’ve seen what CHF looks like a hundred times, you can pick out the pattern almost instantaneously. Watch a hundred people have cardiac chest pain and you’ll be able to see it from across the room. But it doesn’t matter how many times you read those chapters in your books. You need to see it.

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Think About It

We do our job, and while we do our job we think about how we do our job.

And we certainly decide what we think about our job.

But we don’t often think about how we think about or job?

Do you ever think about the way you think about your job?

I think it’s important.

What do you think?

What Makes A Good EMT (Part 2)

Still struggling with the good EMT thing. I’m glad to be at your service. Grab a pen and answer these questions for yourself.

• What’s your internal bias toward dealing with patients and their challenges?  When patients have needs that don’t meet with your expectations how do you tend to react? Could you do that better? How?
• What’s it like to be your partner? How do people feel about you after they’ve run calls with you? Is that by your design?
• How do you handle it when you fail? When you have a bad call or things don’t go right? Are you willing to be fallible before your peers and own your mistakes? If you really felt that you were good at what you do, what would be the ideal way to address these inevitable errors?
• What is your tolerance for learning. Are you still in an active learning process or have you stagnated in your growth since you entered the field. What did you learn today?

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5 Things My Kids Taught Me About EMS

I’m blessed with two kids. They are amazing. My kids changed my whole perspective on the world. They re-framed my purpose. It’s wonderful, the way a few minutes with your kids can put an entire bad day in perspective. They also force you to evaluate some of your own behaviors. (If you’re lucky.)

Here are a few of the more valuable lessons I’ve learned from my kids.

1.) Test Your Limits.

Kids know this instinctively. The moment you create a boundary they begin testing it. There is no running in this area. How fast is running? Can we just walk really fast? What about jogging?  It’s like they just instinctively know that life is more fun when you’re testing the limits.

Sure there are boundaries that we all have to live within but when was the last time you gave them a little test or maybe tried to actively redefine them? “OK, are you saying that I can’t attend this training or that you’re not willing to pay for me to attend this training? So are you saying we can’t use the conference room for an EMS journal club or we can’t use it during business hours?”

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Seniors Get Nude To Protect Local Volunteers

Did you see that?  That’s what I’m talking about.

Recently I took a bit of flack here for a suggestion I made. A New Jersey volunteer squad was having their funding cut by the governor and there was a lot of online press with the squad members explaining how devastating this would be to the community and how essential their service was to the sick and injured.

I made two observations:

1.) If you are certain that your service is essential, the best was to make your point is to call the governors bluff. Start shutting the doors on certain days. … Stop providing the service.

2.) If the community feels your service is essential they will rally around you. No need to shout your own praises, they wil do it for you.

I took some e-mail heat from New Jersey volunteers explaining that the public can’t be trusted to understand what’s truly good for them. The idea of not responding to an emergency was reportedly reprehensible and the fear that the community wouldn’t understand what they had lost until it was to late was evident.

I disagreed. I still disagree. And to further stand by my claim, I give you The Pinnup Boys of Atlantic Shores.

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Be Remakable

I’m going to ask you to try something out for me. And then come back and tell me what you did and how it went. I want you to go to your next shift with this idea:

Be Remarkable

That’s it.

What would it look like? How would you do it? Those are valid questions. They also might be resistance to the idea of being remarkable.

You may have grown accustomed to the idea of laying low, going with the crowd and being rather unremarkable. Here are some ideas.

1.) When little kids and grown adults are inspired by you, you’re remarkable.

2.) When you walk on to a scene and the energy you bring with you changes the mood for the better, you’re remarkable.

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You Can’t Give Away What You Don’t Have

Imagine we were walking down the beach together on a sunny day and I suddenly looked at you and said, “Would you like an apple?”

If you were hungry, your initial reaction might be, “Yes, I’d love one.” But you might also be a bit perplexed. I mean, what if I clearly didn’t have an apple? Somewhere in your mind you’d wonder where the apple was. Did I have one stashed in a pocket? Do I know a good fruit stand near-by? Your next offering might be an awkward sounding question. “Uh … do you have an apple, Steve?” or perhaps, “Where is it?”

When it comes to physical objects the implication is clear. I can’t give you something that I don’t have. It’s not physically possible. Nothing could be more obvious. And that brings us to an interesting point about some of our more non-tangible assets like compassion, patience, kindness and good patient care.

You see, when writing about things like kindness, compassion and patient rapport I’m as guilty as the next guy of falling into “tips and tricks” mode. In the past I’ve written articles about how to speak and behave in ways that help build patient rapport. I’ve listed tips for making the patient feel welcome and comfortable and I’ve extolled the virtues of good listening, kind interactions and compassionate care. But I, like many other EMS authors, have overlooked one simple truth.

None of it  really works if you don’t feel it.

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