I have had trouble posting lately. I go through phases with the job and with the blog and am in one now.
The reason I started writing about EMS in the first place was to capture the human side — the view of life and people the job provides.
To a lessor extent I like writing about the medicine or the systems issues.
I am still working 40 hours a week and doing calls, but I just don’t feel as close to the people as I did.
Part of this may be because I am precepting again, and the nature of precepting, standing back somewhat keeps me from fully engaging the patient. (I am also struggling with precepting because I feel so far removed from being a new paramedic that I have trouble seeing the job through a new medic’s eyes anymore. I may assume they know what they don’t or assume they don’t know what they do. I don’t think I am doing as good a job at it as I once did. It was a pride of mine.)
Another reason may be that I am so busy with the two jobs and other obligations (like family where in my 15-month-old daughter I have true happiness) that I don’t have the time to just write and see what develops. Some of my favorite stories have come from just writing and as I write about the call, the lessons of it start to come out in a way they would not if I weren’t examining it closely and the best way for me to examine a call is to write about it.
A third reason is I don’t want to repeat myself, to write the same story over and over again. I could argue that every story, every patient is different if you look closely, but since I am not looking closely, they seem the same.
As far as the systems and medicine, I do have some interesting subjects yet to write about. One is cardiocerebral resuscitation – the variation on the new CPR where instead of ventilating, medics put a nonrebreather on the patient, who is then passively ventilated by the CPR. Very interesting and promising.
What is holding me back about writing about systems issues right now is there seem to be so many in which politics plays a bigger factor than patient care. I know it is naive of me to think that patients should come first ahead of various groups self-interest even when that self interest has the best intentions, but that is how is has always been in all fields. I am all in favor of the new evidenced based medicine, but I am seeing too much research that has its own agenda. Studies funded by drug companies or studies that advance the preexisting ideas of the authors. And too many policies promulgated or blocked based on reasons other than outcome.
I am at one of these crossroads where I want to write truthful things, but am finding myself uncertain of what to believe in.
I want this job and this field to matter, and I want to write about why it matters.
The only real truth I know is to try to do my job as well as I can and treat my patients as best as I can, but I have written multiple versions of this over the years to the point it seems repetitive. That should just be a given. It shouldn’t have to be written or held up as a standard. It should just be the standard.
I have overcome these periods in the past, and hope to again write and work with inspiration.
But in the meantime I (as a paramedic and a writer) struggle to find meaning between silence and noise.
Thanks for listening.