Do the best and brightest leave EMS before retiring?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Skip Kirkwood on July 3, 2009 at 5:49pm

Hi Kathy! Nice to see you back on the board. How are things in the big city? Did you catch the Staten Island ferry crash the other day?

I agree with your question, and I agree with Nathan, but I become more discouraged every day. We're talking about moving the profession forward, and people make positive noises, but when push comes to shove they want "easy" - and they don't seem to grasp the difference between vocational training and being an educated professional. The support for "garage-based EMT and paramedic schools" in this thread bummed me out: http://connect.jems.com/forum/topics/anybody-else-find-something .

There is so much quadrant 4 thinking out there (don't know what they don't know); folks don't understand that studying history and economics and business and psychology and sociology might actually help one be a better EMS professional.

WE are still here because we believe that what we do is important, that we do it well, and that if we work at it we can make the world a better place for everyone, and the EMS system a better place for those who come behind us. It's called commitment.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Katherine Fuchs on July 4, 2009 at 2:47am

Hey there Skip. Can't complain. I was working in the Bronx, so I missed the ferry incident. A colleague who was there said that it ran pretty well though, thankfully.

I read the thread you cited and others with similar themes and responses. I think that what makes it easy for me to get what you're saying is that an actual value can be assigned to training and education when salaries are reviewed in collective bargaining. The difference is that the value of a degree is generally greater than the value of a certification alone. An employer might not necessarily volunteer to conduct a salary review and assign that fair value toward higher pay for its employees. So one might ask, if that's the case then what's the point of having an education since we won't get the money for it anyway? Having the education gives you the option to fight for the higher salary where you wouldn't be able to if you didn't have it. Which brings us back to our favorite question, who is willing to fight? Which then brings us back to what you said about "easy". It is not easy to make progress, slow and difficult at times but not impossible.

Nite.

Kathy

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Duncan Hitchcock on July 4, 2009 at 7:14am

Progress only comes on the backs of those willing to commit to time and energy, have the tenacity to continue in the face of seemingly overshelming obsticles, and compromise the method but not the necessary.

I agree, Skip, that at times it can be discouraging. But somewhere out there, someone is listening and hears what we are saying. Not just the words but the message. A spark is ignited, a vision comes into focus and a path is realized. They will become our best and brightest. And they will stay the course. No....they will set a new course, with new ideas and new methods and means. But they will move our industry to the next level.

Have faith in the value of all the years of dedication and hard work that we have put into this wild and crazy profession. We have affected a positive change but our job is not done. This is our mission. To keep the ball rolling up the hill. Keep at it.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Katherine Fuchs on July 4, 2009 at 7:51am

Duncan,

As usual, very well said.

Kathy

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on July 5, 2009 at 5:53pm

Duncan,

Speaking as one of those who stuck it out, I agree with the concept behind your thoughts.
On the other hand, I could fill up three or four excellent EMS systems with some of the best and brightest former paramedics around. Long hours, low pay, dangerous work...a lot of them have become physicians, nurses, PAs, or changed careers completely. Virtually every one of them now makes more money for safer, less stressful work. In this case, the stress is defined by those who experience it - the ex-medics. Until we find a way to keep people in a profession that has relatively low pay for often dirty-and-dangerous work that has very little career ladder in a lot of places, we're indeed going to keep losing a lot of the best and brightest to other career fields. I admire anyone who has stuck it out for a long time, but if you look around, most of us advocating for long EMS careers are those who have successully made it into management, flight medicine, or other EMS positions that don't involve working on an ambulance every shift.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Skip Kirkwood on July 5, 2009 at 9:14pm

I just don't know if I'd call those who have elected a different profession "the best and the brightest of EMS." I don't know that they were the best and the brightest when they started, and they stopped being "of EMS" when they chose a different career. To my way of thinking, there is "leaving EMS" (meaning, this is not for me because althought I want to do it, it doesn't meet my needs) and there is "I want to be something else when I grow up."

And perhaps Ben hits the problem on the head in his last sentence. If the only career option that EMS officers long-service employees is working on an ordinary ambulance, then the EMS organization has failed. Some people just don't want to do the same exact thing for 20 years - and some do.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on July 5, 2009 at 9:48pm

If the ones who left were part of the best and brightest prior to leaving, but don't count after they leave,
doesn't that sort of make Nathan's point?

Does "long suffering" have to be a condition of "best and brightest"?

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by dr-exmedic on July 5, 2009 at 9:55pm

Ben Waller said:

Virtually every one of them now makes more money for safer, less stressful work.

And then there are some of us who make more money (well, after residency anyway) for safer but more stressful work.... ;)

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by dr-exmedic on July 5, 2009 at 10:02pm

Ben Waller said:

If the ones who left were part of the best and brightest prior to leaving, but don't count after they leave,
doesn't that sort of make Nathan's point?

Does "long suffering" have to be a condition of "best and brightest"?

I second this motion! :)

▶ Reply to This

▶ Reply to This

• First
• Previous
• Next
• Last