The most important part of a patient assessment, when the patient is conscious anyway, is listening to their complaints. Where is the pain? When did it start? What were you doing when it started? Does it travel?

From there you can start a treatment plan based on how the patient feels. And they always feel better when somebody listens.

It isn't hard, just listen, and take yourself out of the equation for a little while. Take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth. Maybe because I've been witness to so much I've developed more acute listening skills than the average bear.

Why do people feel the need to trump other people when bad news is the news of the day? People don't need to hear about our troubles when they are telling you theirs. They don't expect that you will have the answer to their grief, or pain, or medical problems, they just want somebody to share their burden, somebody to listen to them, somebody who cares about them.

Maybe I'll take the lessons learned when I'm away from work and and start using them there. I think I'm going to start telling my patients all about my problems after they tell me theirs.

"Can you rate your pain?"
"9 out of 10!"
"Well, that's bad, but back in '94 I twisted my nipple and let me tell you, 10 out of 10!"

"Where did the lump start?"
"It started in my lung and metastasized. It's in my brain now."
"Too bad, I know all about it, my best friend had cancer, it was bad!"

"Do you take medications?"
"Yes, for depression."
"Depression? Let me tell you about depression. A few years ago I had to put my dog down. Now that's depression!"
"My daughter was killed in a car accident."
"I know how you feel. My mother died. She was only eighty-nine years old."

I don't know, maybe folks just don't know what to say. Sometimes saying nothing is better.

Thanks for reading. (and listening)

When the bell tolls, it’s time to put our problems on a shelf and get in the truck and go. The people who call us have problems of their own to deal with, and do not need a depressed, disgruntled or judgmental person showing up at their side.

Case in point: A friend felt sick, she was disoriented and vomiting. Things got so bad she called 911. I’ve responded to “a person vomiting” hundreds of times. More times than not I vent a bit en route, the usual grumblings about 911 abuse, and beating the system and don’t these people have cars, or haven’t they ever vomited before.

My friend has a brain tumor the size of a tangerine. She’s forty-eight years old.

I don’t know who took her to the hospital, and I don’t know if they treated her well, or like just another nonsense call. I hope they did the right thing, and treated her like a person deserving of respect, care and professionalism.

Emergency Medical Services are a relatively young part of public safety. We are the face of that service, we’ve got to rise to the occasion whenever it calls, and do our best, no matter what demons are bouncing around our heads. The ability to compartmentalize things for future dissection is an imperative part of any EMT or Paramedics tool chest. Sometimes it’s the most important medicine we have.