Are You a Hunter Caregiver?

According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, a hunter-gatherer society is one that exists on the "direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without significant recourse to the domestication of either."

So what's a hunter caregiver society? Well, it's EMS.

On Oct. 28 at the EMS Expo conference, Scotty Bolleter, BS, EMT-P, the director of education for San Antonio AirLIFE, returned to the national stage with a keynote lecture, "In Search of the Hunter Caregiver."

Before I embarked on the "rollercoaster ride of emotion" that Bolleter promised his lecture would bring, I got a chance to ask him why this topic was important to him and why it should be important to others.

Here's what he told me:

"From the beginning of time, we are programmed or blessed with the desire to hunt. We hunt for safety, shelter, food and togetherness at an instinctual level. This results in our fundamental EMS desire to be aggressive while attempting to find this unique blend that makes us such amazing caregivers."

According to Bolleter, this unique blend is our "caregiving flexibility," which is critical in our effort to understand medicine, conflict and the right human solutions.

After a word of caution about oversimplifying things, he described the two sides of EMS using himself as an example.

"If I can’t demonstrate or express 'the macho' (and trust me, the rotor blades help), my EMS friends can’t hear a word I say. Likewise, if I fail to read the 12-lead correctly, the cath lab gets a false heart alert and I’m an imbecile. If I aggressively treat the injured drunk driver, it says one thing, but if I gently brush back the 87 y/o woman's hair, it says something completely different."

He added that being flexible and even malleable with his attitude, medicine and emotion has not only strengthened his career but prolonged it.

In addition to his South Texas responsibilities, Bolleter's career has helped him to recently wake up in Russia, Australia, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. He said flexibility and compassion are key to the work that he does and understanding where that came from is critical to our survival.

Having presented this inspiring lecture at least 25 times around the world, Bolleter told me the message resonates with those who "speak emergent medicine" because it’s a language and lifestyle that runs much deeper than just a career -- it’s almost instinct.