Emergency medical service or psychologists on wheels?

Even so, we could often describe the reality of what the emergency medical service and its employees have to orient themselves towards. When I was still a child, as more than one little curious person, I thought that performing the work of rescuers is not easy at all - very difficult conditions such as amputation or shattering injuries of limbs, head, rescuing suicides from bridges, heart attacks, suffocation of children, drowning, resuscitation and similar conditions. All this will surely come to mind even for many adults when they hear the honking of an ambulance. Of course, without wishing for any of these negative health conditions, I simply took it as a job full of challenges and situations when a person has to behave correctly, make decisions, separate himself from the given situation, filter various stimuli from the environment and concentrate fully. However, I did not know then that it was not far from the truth at all.

This reality, in which I am already moving as a paramedic in the emergency medical service for the fifth year soon, is nevertheless sometimes different in some ways. Gro exits and the essence of the skills described above, which a paramedic should possess, are often used, perhaps as much as eighty percent, in the situations described below.

Challenges and situations when a person must behave properly. Here it is more about acute conditions and situations when a person has to keep "in check" and bite his tongue, especially if we go on a trip at two in the morning, such as - abdominal pain that has lasted for two weeks, similar problems in the past, he doesn't take his medication, doesn't follow a diet, hasn't contacted a general practitioner and now he can't sleep well... Or pain in a limb, when, for example, a patient suffers from chronic pain in a limb that lasts for several days, or another part of the body due to a certain already diagnosed or due to his own indifference or other undiagnosed reason.

We could talk about correct decisions especially, unfortunately, not only in situations with acute conditions, but often when distinguishing whether the patient has not completely invented the given problem and difficulties, especially if all vital functions are normal and there is no indication of acute pain and acute condition. Regarding the given situation, I remember a specific trip, when we had to deal with an alleged "broken back" and the patient was lying on the bed upon arrival. At the final announcement that we were going to the hospital (he probably achieved what he wanted, because every analgesic treatment offered was not good enough for him, he even said that he would call again soon if the pain was on the horizon again) he immediately sat down gracefully with a "very" painful back, crossed one leg over the other, tied the shoelaces and went to the ambulance himself without stopping to think about it...

Depersonalization is not only when the health condition suddenly becomes complicated and it seriously affects the functioning of the given patient from minute to minute, as well as close relatives, but also when some patients communicate with us vulgarly, even threaten us and sometimes even try to physically attack us. Yes, that is also, unfortunately, the truth and reality about working in the ZZS.

When you need to fully concentrate and filter stimuli from the environment, keep in mind situations when we ask targeted questions when taking an anamnesis from a patient and instead of answers from a patient who is fully conscious, two or more relatives answer for him, whose answers differ from each other, or they convince the patient himself that his problems have a different length and nature, or they describe the problems more vividly than the patient himself.

On the other hand, there are situations and exits when it is really a matter of minutes and the need for the presence of the EMS at a given address at a given moment is very desirable. However, it often happens that when arriving at such an acute "address", relatives ask questions such as: "Where have you been so much? Why did it take you so long??" and similar, Well, guess... many a rescuer will surely think, thinking how to correctly express their thoughts out loud and explain that, unfortunately, we are late, because somewhere we were dealing with skin problems, a stuck splinter, an attached tick, or non-acute chronic conditions lasting weeks, months and sometimes even a year. Unfortunately, many of us have become accustomed to transferring responsibility to others, not dealing with our obligations, but especially flaunting our rights. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to assign a task of self-reflection for each and every one of us. What if one of our loved ones, God forbid, needs an ambulance because it will cost him his life, but it will be able to arrive only after solving the problem of a slightly elevated body temperature in a person who has not even tried to lower the temperature, or has not tried other options, solutions, and mistakes an ambulance for a taxi...

The following lines are intended for those who "know" about it and not for those who only call when the situation calls for it and DO NOT POSTPONE it. Because there are also such "extremes" to be regretted, when people trivialize sudden and acute life-threatening conditions and changes in health, but they can sometimes pay with their lives.

So I challenge us: let's think soberly and not unnecessarily complicated or overly anxious. And finally, for those who are concerned: isn't it convenience or selfishness, or getting rid of responsibility for oneself, when circumstances, non-acute things, problems that we can solve otherwise, are solved precisely by abusing ZZS?