If you’ve ever grown plants in pots you know that selecting the right size pot for the plant is essential. Put a plant in a pot that’s too large for it and 
the new life will struggle to find water and nutrients. Place the same plant in a pot that’s too small and it will struggle to find space to grow.
Such is the nature of growing things.
It works the same way with you and your skills and your protocols. Your relationship with your protocols is going to change as your knowledge and skill grow. It’s going to happen. This isn’t my opinion. It’s called the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition. And when you understand how it relates to you and your medical skills, you’re bound to have one of those ah-ha moments. Here’s how it works.
Read This Entire Literary Masterpiece…
It’s the week before the final exam and my EMT class is feeling the pressure. The two-hundred question final looms large on the horizon and, in less than a week, the students will need to perform five randomly selected skills stations perfectly. This is the task that has most of the students really feeling the heat.
So we do what we do every class. We practice and practice and practice. So
there we were, gathered around in groups, practicing our National Registry skills sheets. That’s when Joey asked me the question that absolutely floored me. It floored me and annoyed me, but really didn’t surprise me. I’ve heard the question asked before in many different ways.
Joey finished up his medical scenario and I was giving him some feedback on his performance. He looked down at the fictional patient’s medication list that I had provided him and he shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t really have to know what all these mean right?”
I told him I didn’t understand. He mulled the thought over in his head and took another stab at it. “I mean…we need to write these down and report them to the doctor, but it isn’t important for us to know what they all do. (Pause.) As EMT’s. (Pause.) Right?”
Read This Entire Literary Masterpiece…
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?”
Read This Entire Literary Masterpiece…
For the most part, people trust us.
When they hand over their confidential medical information, they trust us.
When they hand over the keys to their houses, their cars and their posessions, they trust us.
When they surrender their limbs to our IV’s and their bodies to our medications, they trust us.
When they open the front door and point toward the back bedroom where their loved one lays in bed and say, “She’s back here.” they trust us.
When they hold their baby in outstreached arms they trust us.
They trust that we know the right thing to do.
Read This Entire Literary Masterpiece…
