24 FALL • 2011
www.carolinafirejournal.com
Carolina Fire Rescue EMS Journal
Compassion: Do you have it? By David Hesselmeyer Compassion. MerriamWebster’s Dictionary defines compassion as “sympathetic consciousness of other’s distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” One would think that those working in emergency medical services would have compassion.That being said often times I have to wonder. I think we must start early on. Why did we get in to working or volunteering in EMS? I think back and for me it was a way to assist those in need even more than just being able to put out fires and such. EMS came through the way of the fire service for me. I am sure that each of you has your own special and unique story as to why you got into EMS.
That being said, each of your stories likely has a strong connection with helping someone. You wanted to be able to aid someone in need.To me this is part of compassion. So for most of us we started in this business for the want to help people and have compassion for them. Now fast forward a little. I personally have been in EMS for 13 years. For you, it could be days, to many, many years of service.Take a second and think about that last call that you had where you initial thought was something to the effect of,“This is going to be a total BS call.” Does this sound like a compassionate thought? Of course it isn’t. All of us have times where we lose that compassion for our
patients. Compassion is very important especially in a business like EMS. Sometimes such action helps heals a parent’s heart when their son or daughter just died. It might be that your compassion might just relax that patient to a state where you can better help them. Either way, compassionate actions can aid you in your work. There are a couple things I think we, as emergency medical providers, need to consider when having the burned out or BS call mentality. What is an emergency medical call? First, we must remember that an emergency medical call to us might not be the same as for the patient or their family. We have been medically trained; we know what an emergency is and what it is not. We also know what signs and symptoms indicate a severe illness as compared to a simple one. However, our clients do not necessarily know the difference.Think about a new mom who has called you for her four month old daughter who has a fever of 101.6 degrees. Is this necessarily an emergency? No, probably not. However, most times in a case like this the mom only knows that this is a fever and it is not normal.This leads her to wanting our help.
Closeness to the Call The second thing we must consider is that we are generally not involved in the call for service. We are generally not related to the patient. We basically have little to no involvement with the call other than being asked for our assistance. This is not the case for the people calling.They or their family are sick and they don’t know what to do.They do know though who to call, that being us. Imagine the last time your family member got sick. How much more involved were you concerning your feelings and wanting to take care of them? I know for me it was a lot more. Now think about that for the patient or their family who is calling you.
The BS Call Now that we have discussed all that, are there still BS calls? Absolutely.There are those calls that they know that they do not need our services. Nevertheless, take the time to handle the call the right way. I would argue that in more times than not, we cause ourselves more work and more issues because of our attitudes in this case. Simply handle the case with compassion and like you would any other call and be happy you are there for those who request your ser-
vices. Also within this we must realize that in some way most everyone pays a little bit for our services.
Conclusion I know there have been times that I have failed and not had the right amount of compassion that I should have had on emergency runs. We all have I am sure. Let us all take time when we are on that next run to remember the things we have discussed here. In this day and age we have got to be happy that we get paid to help others out in their time of need, whether it be an emergency or not. Be safe out there! David Hesselmeyer has over 11 years experience in fire and EMS. Hesselmeyer works for the Public Health Regional Surveillance (PHRST) Team 3 out of Cumberland County as a Regional Emergency Management Planner. He can be reached at dhesselmeyer@yahoo. com.
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