5 Things We Must Stop Complaining About

I have often stated that complaining is an essential skill of every EMS provider. We complain about everything from call volumes to changes in our E-PCR software. And for the more advanced practitioners, there is actually complaining about complaining. It’s one of our favorite pastimes.

All joking aside, I think we need to discuss some of the things that we get upset about, as we spend a lot of time and energy complaining about things that don’t impact our jobs or the industry.

Transfers

I know transfers aren’t exciting and they tend to come at inconvenient times but just because we don’t enjoy them, doesn’t mean they have no value. A patient sitting in a rural hospital who requires a cath lab is in just as much need of our services as the patient sitting on their couch having a medical complaint. Yes, you can argue that many patients are being needlessly transferred to higher levels of care, but unless you actually know what has gone into making that decision, you really don’t have any business judging the sending facility. Showing up to the ED complaining about a transfer makes us look bad and is no different than the triage nurses getting upset over us bringing them a patient. Besides, we are running far more unnecessary scene calls than we are transfers.

Dispatch

Complaining about dispatch has pretty much become a right-of-passage for EMS providers. It is our equivalent of earning our wings when it comes to complaining. Trust me, I have been more than guilty of doing this throughout my career. Here’s the problem: We really have no idea what we’re complaining about. Perception is not reality, it’s only perception. What we see on our end of the radio is barely a fraction of what is taking place in the dispatch room. The truth is, many of us are complaining about dispatch procedures when we don’t even understand what a dispatcher’s job really is. Unless you have a good understanding of EMD, ProQA and system status management, you’re more than likely complaining about things you don’t know. Even at that, unless you are at the phone listening to the caller, chances are, you still don’t have a good understanding of what took place.

This isn’t so much about dispatchers as it is our habit of complaining about other jobs. We need to fix the problems on our end before we start pointing fingers at other professionals. Trust me, they have just as much—if not more—to complain about when it comes to us.

Nursing Homes

The light-hearted “it’s not my patient” or “I just got here” jabs are one thing. We all joke about that and, for the most part, it’s harmless unless it’s done in public. Where we go wrong is when we legitimately get upset over things like poor reports and non-urgent complaints. This is something that’s never going to change, so losing sleep over it does nothing but add to our burnout level. We run scene calls every single day without getting a detailed report or having any treatment done prior to arrival. That is what we train for. Nursing home staff aren’t EMS professionals. They don’t receive extensive training on how to manage respiratory failure, traumatic injuries, etc. Instead, they manage a large building full of dementia patients at a staffing ratio that would make any hospital nurse stroke out.

Instead of getting upset or giving attitude, just get the information that you can, assess your patient and smile. It’s not worth the anger or the stress.

Employer-Provided Education

We need to collectively remove the phrase “my employer doesn’t provide enough education” from our vocabulary. There is absolutely no excuse to not be well practiced on skills and up-to-date on new advances in prehospital care. There is plenty of free information readily available on the Internet. While I believe that it is in an employer’s best interest to provide regular and quality education, I still believe that continuing education is the responsibility of the individual.

Recognition

If we got as angry at our peers for making fools out of themselves on social media as we do when the public calls us “ambulance drivers” we would have a serious grass-roots movement on our hands. We have to remember that when someone gets a title wrong, it only means they are uneducated about our jobs. We have got to stop taking that stuff personally. Instead of worrying about firefighters getting “all the credit” or people using titles that we decided are offensive, let’s focus on being the absolute best representative of the industry that we can.

We also need to stop insisting that we take all the credit for “saving lives.” There are only a few instances where EMS providers are 100% responsible for saving a life. The majority of the time we are part of an extensive team that works together provide a positive outcome. Getting spontaneous circulation back on a cardiac arrest means nothing without the proper follow-through at the ED, cath lab, ICU, etc. I don’t say this to downplay what we do. All I’m saying is that we need to understand our role in healthcare and represent it the best we can.

Conclusion

Spending our time and energy getting angry with other people or organizations only adds to our stress level and increases our chances of burnout. We need to stop stressing over the things we can’t change. Nursing homes, dispatch centers, hospitals and even our employers are things that are essentially out of our control. Stressing over them accomplishes nothing. What we can change is ourselves and our attitudes. We need to take pride in our work, show up with a smile and be as professional as we can at all times. Instead of insisting that someone else make changes, we need to be the change our industry needs.