Already a year Alexandra(name changed) works as a nurse at an ambulance substation medical care in Khabarovsk. During this time, she accepted more than a thousand calls and saved many lives. A small and fragile-looking girl wears a uniform five (!) sizes too large and carries a heavy stretcher with patients. Wherever her service took her: to fight gangsters in barracks, and to luxury apartments with pregnant women. She spoke about her work routine and patients in a frank interview with AiF.ru.
From call to call
The standard shift of doctors and paramedics lasts 24 hours. To get a rate, you need to work every three days. However, everyone here works beyond the norm because they want to have a normal salary. For example, a paramedic who works two hours (about 12 days a month) or simply lives at a substation receives from 42 to 45 thousand. Just enough to buy sedatives and forget. The teams also include nurses and nurses. These are mostly medical students. They work a little less: a day on weekends and 15 hours (from 17:00 to 8:00) on weekdays.
At our substation in best case scenario There are five brigades. One intensive care unit, which responds to emergency calls, three line ones (serving everything) and one children’s room. But it is not always there, because there is only one pediatrician, and if he has a day off, then there is no one to work. In the ambulance constant shortage personnel, especially doctors. We only have five of them. In addition to the pediatrician, there is also a therapist, two cardiologists and a resuscitator. The rest are paramedics. They often work as the first numbers, and the second ones are medical students. True, on weekdays students are not always able to combine study and work, so part of the time their partners go to calls alone. But this has to be done, because there are not many people willing to “plow” in an ambulance.
Now there is some kind of madhouse going on at the substation. Many employees went on vacation in August, so only two line crews and one intensive care team remained working. They have to bounce from call to call. The accepted norm of calls per day, when the doctor is still more or less alive, is 12-14 visits. But in winter we had occasion to serve 33 requests. Sometimes there was downtime, people had to wait for an ambulance, but not for long, about 15 minutes longer than usual. According to the rules, we have to drive for a maximum of 20 minutes, and the service area is small, so we have time.
"Popular" diseases
The most “popular” calls are pressure and temperature. They also treat intestinal poisoning, suspected appendicitis and injuries. The emergency room is generally our “favorite” place to travel. It often happens that people call the dispatcher, do not explain anything, but simply say that they feel bad. And then we begin to rack our brains over which team to send: line or intensive care.
We often go to “rescue” people from osteochondrosis. This is not what the ambulance should do, but no one, of course, cares. A man has a pain in the area of his heart, and he calls us because he is sure that he is having a heart attack. In fact, if something happens to the heart, then it will not be the heart itself that will hurt, but the area behind the sternum, the shoulder, the shoulder blade, and the pit of the stomach. And pain in the heart manifests itself either as osteochondrosis or intercostal neuralgia. We start explaining this to people, but they continue to say that they are dying and insist on an ECG. But in such a situation, we do not take a cardiogram; the most we do is inject a painkiller and suggest calling a therapist from the clinic to prescribe treatment.
Grandmothers love to call us and complain about the pressure. Although they are often themselves to blame for the fact that it has jumped. They don’t monitor their weight or nutrition, and they also like to eat salty foods, although they know very well that this should not be done. They skip taking medications, do not control their regimen, and “plow” in the summer at their dachas in the sun. Of course, then their blood pressure is under 200. And then the grannies call us, yelling that they are having a stroke or heart attack, and then they go out again to bend their backs in their favorite garden beds.
When to call an ambulance?
By the way, there is a list of regulations that states which calls an ambulance should respond to and which ones it should not. But either the population does not know about its existence, or they simply don’t care. The document can be viewed on the Internet. It says, for example, that we should arrive when called “with a fever” only if there is also vomiting, convulsions or a rash. One thing is a must. In fact, it often turns out that you arrive, and there is 37.3, cough and runny nose. In this case, what people want from the ambulance is unclear. We are emergency care and do not have the right to prescribe treatment; this should be done by doctors at the clinic. And people say: “Have you come in vain? Write something down." And if you don’t do this, they then write complaints. So sometimes you have to prescribe medications and give recommendations. It's good if a doctor does it. I would not like to speak badly of paramedics, but in terms of their knowledge of drugs and medicines, they are very different from doctors. But they work very well with their hands: they place catheters, IVs, inject, make bandages and wash out the stomach.
We have one female paramedic who, to be honest, is not very smart. He confuses medications, knows nothing, gives ancient advice. Once, as part of a line brigade, she responded to a call for “stomach pain.” Without understanding it, she injected the patient with two ampoules of ketorol, which was absolutely forbidden to do, since she had an ulcer. And the drug caused bleeding. That’s it, two hours later a resuscitation team was called to the same apartment (I worked there that day). They arrived, and the girl was already rinsing with blood. We quickly injected her and took her to the hospital. And everything happened because of the negligence of the previous team.
"It's hard not to become hardened"
Very often we “treat” homeless people, because the ambulance receives a lot of calls from well-wishers who find drunk homeless people under the fence, and then tell us to pick them up and save them. And who else will come to any hole and pull them out of the ditch? Yes, only us! When I just started working, there was such a case: I went on a call with a very good doctor, still of Soviet origin. She was a woman about 60 years old who had worked as an ambulance worker most of her life. It was winter outside, we drove up to some bench where a tipsy homeless man was sitting and complaining of pain in his arm. So this woman took him into the car to warm up, injected him with painkillers, treated him to a bun and asked where he lived. We took him straight to the garages where he spends the night, because it was wildly cold outside, and the man was dressed very lightly. I remember this struck me so much that after so many years of work the doctor still had a kind heart. Yes, we need to take example from such people and erect monuments to them!
It’s hard not to become hardened in our profession. And all because it’s usually abnormal people who call. There are 90 percent of them. I will say this: the adequate ones sit at home and die quietly because they are embarrassed to call an ambulance. Rude, but true.
One winter at three o'clock in the morning I am with a paramedic Seryozhey I came to a call for “ear pain.” The intercom turned out to be inoperative, and no one met us on the street. We had to stand at the entrance in the cold, wait for the dispatcher to call the patient so that she would come down for us. After 15 minutes, a drunken body fell out of the door and began to cover us with obscenities: “What... took you so long and why didn’t you open it yourself.” Although we arrived quickly, and, of course, we couldn’t have the key. We went into her apartment, where her drunken roommate was sitting. Already in the room, the woman started yelling about how her ear hurt and how she hated us. Without stopping the screams, she pounced on Seryozha, who, by the way, was half her size, and began to shake him, saying: “Why do you have a suit?” of blue color? Doctors only wear white coats.” He managed to escape. But the concert didn't end there. When we asked the woman to fill out the summons documents, she started throwing them at us. In general, we barely made it out of there.
It’s good that I worked with a man then. Another time I was on a shift with a female doctor, she was only 28 years old. We responded to a call at some barracks, where a man was killed in a fight. While she was examining the body, a criminal man came up to me and said: “It’s dangerous to carry so much gold on yourself. If you weren’t an ambulance officer, I would quickly film all your tricks.”
We are often rude and harassed. During the shift there will definitely be a call where they will throw mud at you. Of course, the paramedic is sometimes joked: “I could hit this goat over the head with a box right now.” But, of course, no one will stun people with anything. Firstly, the patient is always right, and secondly, we always carry a heavy medical box and a cardiograph with us, and also carry something for defense... No, we just rely on fate and luck.
But the opposite is the case. One day at 6:00 a school life safety teacher came to the substation. He apologized for disturbing me and politely asked me to take my blood pressure because he wasn’t feeling well. I measure, and he has 220. He’s all sticky and cold. Basically, the person had a heart attack. And because of his modesty, he was embarrassed to call an ambulance in the evening and suffered until the morning. I did an ECG for him and gave him necessary medications and sent me to the hospital. But if he hadn’t shown up on time, he would have died at home.
"Unloved Contingent"
My least favorite group is probably pregnant women. They think that an ambulance is a taxi, which exists to deliver people to the maternity hospital. And there are so many challenges, and now you need a ride. I understand if a woman lives somewhere very far away or does not have money for transport, but most often we are called by ladies registered in elite houses with a high fence and security. You walk into their three-room mansion, and next to the woman in labor sits her husband, as if nothing had happened, who has a car, or even two, in the garage downstairs. Can't he take it himself? Of course, here I am talking about pregnant women, whose labor should begin on time and proceed without complications, who can easily get to the hospital themselves without our unfortunate ambulance.
It also often happens that people see an ambulance under their windows and think: “While I’m here, let them look at me too, take my temperature and blood pressure, otherwise I’ll suddenly feel bad.” And they call the dispatcher. This has happened to us more than once: when we were just leaving the house, a call came from the same place, maybe even from a neighboring apartment.
It's your job!
I often hear this phrase from people: “Staying up all night is your job.” Like a spit in the soul. They have no idea what they are talking about. Yesterday I started my shift at five in the evening. At 20:00 we have a driver shift change. It is assumed that during this time (15-20 minutes) the team should have dinner. In fact, the following happened: at 20:05 we received a call and urgently went to it. The next time we arrived at the substation only at 12 at night. And we had just gone to the toilet when they called us again. So we squandered until five in the morning. Then there was about an hour and a half of rest, but sleep did not come, because too many difficult calls were served. And we left again... And does anyone else dare to say “your work”? I come home tired as a dog. I fall on the sofa, take sleeping pills so as not to think about anything bad, not to digest what happened during the shift, and lie there the whole day. With us, everyone forgets as best they can. Some take sedatives, others drink on weekends, and those who smoke empty two packs per shift.
As my loved one often jokes, the most difficult thing in such a job is to survive. And this is true, especially during the day when you don’t sleep, barely eat and rarely visit the toilet. There are paramedics who ask to go to the restroom right when they are called in apartments. I also have my own additional difficulties related to my build. Since I am short, and with this work I have lost weight to size 40, difficulties often arise with transporting patients: it is difficult to carry them. And in the courtyards where we come, everything is often filled with cars. When an ambulance tries to park, some freak from a nearby car will inevitably yell: “Why are you parking your car here?” Should we leave the car in the neighboring yard and carry all the equipment, and then a person, on our backs?
And with work clothes, a funny situation arose: for me, they only found a uniform in size 50.
It's not all in vain!
I believe that the entire primary link of medicine in Russia rests on the ambulance service. But soon there will be nothing to stand on, because Soviet-trained doctors are already retiring, and young specialists are not eager to take their places. Pediatricians come to us after college, stay for literally four months, and then quit. Only those who have hopelessness remain: the paramedics. Them better work still can't find it.
And here’s another reason why you shouldn’t wait for new personnel. Now the following rule has been introduced: after the sixth year, all medical students graduate from universities as primary care physicians. They are not eligible to become emergency physicians. To do this, they need to complete residency for two more years. What else is there to learn? Only if you introduce training, like the astronauts: train, pour ice water on them in the cold, don’t let them sleep or feed them, so they get used to it.But no matter how bad things are at work, you still get moral satisfaction from helping people. Although they don’t appreciate it, you know that you tried your best when you lowered their blood pressure and prescribed treatment. And that everything is not in vain.
Photo from voxpopuli.kz
In Russia, the dismantling of the Soviet emergency medical care system continues. If in St. Petersburg the ambulance substations were dissatisfied with the meager salaries, then in Moscow they decided to simply fire the medical staff, hiring Central Asian migrants to fill the vacant positions.
The first to undergo “reorganization” was the capital’s Ambulance and Emergency Medical Care Station (SSiNMP) named after. A.S. Puchkova. There, 300 orderlies received notice that their positions would be cut. The places of qualified medical personnel will be taken by “employees of cleaning companies.”
The reason for the dismissal of hundreds of orderlies was the new staffing table, which came into force on August 5, 2013. “I inform you that there are no vacant positions to which you could be offered a transfer. In this regard, you can resolve the issue of employment by searching on your own or by contacting the employment service,” says the notice handed to laid-off medical employees.
As it became known, the vacant jobs at the substation will be filled by employees of a commercial cleaning company, the vast majority of whom came to Moscow from Central Asia. The company has already concluded a corresponding agreement with the ambulance station.
Interestingly, no savings are expected as a result of this rotation. “Now our nurses receive 14.3 thousand rubles a month, and if they have years of service, then a maximum of 16 thousand rubles,” said a source at the station. “And with migrants, as we found out, contracts are concluded for 17 thousand rubles per month.”
“We are literally thrown out onto the street,” shared one of those fired. - They take Tajiks and Uzbeks in our place - cheap labor. I heard that half of their salary is taken away from them, which is probably why they are better than us. And if you look at the quality of their work, then it’s generally better to remain silent. Now, where they are, everything is close to complete unsanitary conditions.”
Deputy Mayor of the capital for social development Leonid Pechatnikov tried to refute the information about the dismissal of nurses, saying that they would not be kicked out onto the street, but would be transferred to the staff of cleaning companies. “Ambulance nurses perform the functions of cleaners in office premises at substations, but they are not part of the crew. Accepted correct solution outsource the cleaning to cleaning companies, like the rest of the world does. They (the nurses) will move from the ambulance staff to the staff of cleaning companies,” Pechatnikov said, adding that there is no talk of mass layoffs of ambulance employees. Ru_Compromat is unable to explain why the deputy mayor’s words contradict the notice received by the dismissed nurses.
But Pechatnikov himself shared further plans for the reorganization of the capital’s medicine. According to him, cleaning functions in city hospitals will also eventually be transferred to cleaning companies.
However, the dismissal of nurses is just the tip of the iceberg of ambulance problems. “There is a mass exodus of paramedics and doctors from the ambulance service,” said one of the SSiNMP employees. - People quit because of low salaries and unbearable working conditions. The HR department admitted to us that they had never received so many resignations before.”
This trend is confirmed by the Minister of Health Veronika Skvortsova herself. At the beginning of April she
I don’t even know what to think. Today they hit me hard on my materialistic brain... A challenge is like a challenge. "Renal colic". Let's hurry. I have already seen how people roll around in pain, and I didn’t want to prolong this torment for them. A solid house, with a clean and wide front door. High ceilings, even with stucco in some places, encouraged a respectful attitude towards the owners. The patient, a man of about fifty, thin, gray-haired, with a grimace of pain on his face, independently opened the door and led him into the office, where he lay down on a small couch. There was no need to be particularly clever. A person has been suffering from urolithiasis for a long time and knows about his condition better than visiting doctors.
The sand has gone. It's been bothering me for a day now. The pills don't help. I endured it as long as I could. Sorry...
What kind of apologies are there? Paleness, perspiration, characteristic limitation in careful movements. He quickly leafed through the plump stack of hospital discharge notes. The patient calmly, with understanding, observed the usual algorithm of actions and quickly answered familiar questions.
Will you go to the hospital?
What for? Everything is already clear and there will be no difference. There don't seem to be any new symptoms. You have to endure it, you have to endure it...
“Good. The owner is a gentleman. Analgesics with antispasmodics into a vein are enough. The guy seems to be adequate. If something goes wrong, he will be able to assess the situation himself and call us in time.”
The hands habitually groped for the vein and did what was necessary. Take a moment to look around...
Yeees! Being a “binge bookworm,” I was choked by a waterfall of multi-colored books from floor to ceiling, filling a rather large office. Old bookcases proudly displayed their wealth, gleaming with clean glass and bronze handles. The library was excellent and "readable". By many signs it was clear that the books were not there for beauty or boasting. Catching my admiring glance, the man smiled at the corner of his lips and commented:
My grandfather started collecting this library. She survived two wars and a revolution. Here's what I can add... I went to the cabinets. The books were in many languages. I looked in amazement at the massive embossed, gilded spines. Covers that have faded but have not lost their color. Elm scripts of languages unfamiliar to me. It was real wealth!
History, natural science, botany, mineralogy, archeology, medicine, expedition notes, esoteric literature, mysticism, alchemy, astrology, exegesis...
It became understandable that there were many different figurines, masks, and generally incomprehensible objects in the office. On the free spaces of the walls hung portraits unfamiliar to me, some maps, engravings, diplomas. On one of the diplomas I made out the intricate writing gothic calligraphy patient's name. My unspoken question was answered:
I am a hereditary psychic. Healer...
"Clack-clack!!!" The main-caliber bolt contained a clip of the most malicious remarks about the professionalism of the “healer”! “Who “heals” everyone, and as soon as he gets himself under pressure, he calls for “skoryaks”! Well, now I’ll ask him!..”
Having intercepted my very poisonous comments that were already ready to come out of my tongue, he continued with a sad smile:
But we cannot treat ourselves. Does not work. Neither yourself nor your children. This is the kind of retribution... For the Gift, for interfering in the fate of other people... I know everything you are ready to tell me. I've heard it many times already... I'm not trying to convince you. You help so much, I do so. To each his own. We are doing one thing... And... I am very grateful to you for your effective help! Do you still have a couple of minutes? Would you like a cup of tea?..
Sipping thick, aromatic tea from an elegant porcelain cup, my eyes wandered fascinated through the books. I instantly stopped wanting to argue and be sarcastic. Somehow he spoke very plausibly and sadly about paying for his Gift. "To each his own" ...
Already at the exit from the apartment, he held me by the elbow and suddenly, with difficulty, said:
Leave with the ambulance. You'll burn...
And he continued clearly, distinctly, every word like a flash...:
You let everyone through your heart. You heal with yourself. You can not do it this way. And it is impossible to teach you otherwise. This is your nature. One day you will give everything at once. Leave...
Stunned by thoughts, I looked through the rainy window of an old RAF at the world that had suddenly turned upside down. "...Well, how could it be otherwise?! Create the appearance of activity, while observing detachedly? Play the “almighty” and enjoy the seconds of absolute power? Divide life into “work” and “home”, without mixing and shaking?... Okay , the final is not tomorrow - we have to live."
Medic 32 Medic Central - free on Kalinin Square.
On the 32nd we went to the Botanical Garden. 66K. 16.22
The address was unfamiliar and confusing. Dispatcher 03 was explained for a long time both how to drive and how to get through. Private sector. I make my way along the clumsy fence along the path to a small, well-worn house. After thoroughly rattling the gate, I cross the yard. Nobody meets you. Well, we are not aristocrats, we will enter ourselves. In the hut there was a regular meeting of the political scientists club on the topic “How to correct the situation in Zimbabwe.” The participants presented their points of view in detail at the same time. My appearance caused "silence, shock and awe." The layers of tobacco smoke above the discussion table parted slightly under the pressure fresh air, cowardly sneaking after me.
Oh, Aibolit, blah! Doc, are you going to drink?... No?!... Why did you stop then?!
- Who called the ambulance? And to whom?
After a short but delightfully meaningful conversation, the gentlemen found out that one of them was calling. And the patient is his old mother, who is lying in the next apartment. The anxious concern for the “old lady” sounded cheerful and disgusting.
There was no one in the next room... Actually, as expected. It’s good that he let his “son” go forward and not behind him. Twitching his shoulders menacingly, the eccentric turned to face me, holding his hand behind his back.
OK. Don't fume, bacillus. Run the marathon quietly and you will have luck today. You will leave unscathed and beautiful...
Knit a broom, cartoon hero! Confused Ramsa?!!..
The aggressor froze for a second, but apparently the withdrawal heat clouded the mind more than the instinct of self-preservation. Baring its reddish stumps of teeth slobberily, the body went on the attack...
The dangerous-looking screwdriver in the gnarled claw was a strong argument for a tactical escape, but there was not enough room. And the window opening is too small for a beautiful Hollywood puddle jump. The therapeutic method "stool" was used. Two procedures and the patient is ready... in the sense of healthy... uh... in the sense of not entirely healthy, but he is already moving his eyes adequately and is ready for a constructive dialogue.
Colleagues of the person being healed came galloping to the sounds of the healing event. They studied the situation with interest and expressed every respect and mutual understanding of my actions, profusely apologizing for my colleague. One of the assessors diligently scolded a refusal to be hospitalized... in exchange for refusing to call the evil cavalry. Reasonable. Each person present would be prescribed, taking into account previous merits, “5-7 years of solitude” for a collective attack on “Aibolit.” He left angry, smoky and dissatisfied. Not a trip according to profile. The shaking started much later. When I realized the consequences of digesting a rusty screwdriver with my favorite liver. As always, after the stress, it was not childish. Even the driver was inspired and, sighing enviously, offered to take a sip of government-issued alcohol. The proposal did not go through. Little alcohol would be drunk, but many unpleasant consequences would arise. They made do with a loud, tricky obscenity within the cabin. Let go...
On a call from an elderly couple, a dog was fussing around. In an attempt to identify the breed, two doctoral and three candidate dissertations were defended on genetics, veterinary medicine and the evolution of mammals. The dog did not interfere, but was keenly interested in everything that was happening. Several times he ran out into the corridor with a businesslike look and returned at a quick gallop. I understood the meaning of his maneuvers already at the entrance. An old, bitten ball was carefully stuffed into my jacket pocket. The dog, with all his endless heart, paid the doctor for helping his owner with the most expensive thing he had...
Another tattered entrance to a “skyscraper on its side.” Call for “non-life-threatening injury in an adult.” I'm ringing the doorbell. Nobody opens. I knock - the same reaction. Irritation arises due to a possible false call. I mutter various things under my breath and ring the doorbell next door. It is necessary to show up so that there is no complaint that he did not come at all. Finally, the opposite door (obviously cut down from an armored train during the Civil War) opens slightly under the chain. A bleating voice advises “call quickly and wait.” I sadly kick at the door I'm looking for and finally register a sluggish rustling sound. The lock clicked and malicious remarks and justified claims stuck in my throat... The door was opened for me by a man... without both legs and left arm. Human stump. I said hello. Quite deftly turning around on his belly in the narrow hallway, he crawled, helping with his hand, into the room. Somehow immediately realizing the reason for the cleanliness and polish of the floor, he took off his shoes and only then followed him. The entire environment was arranged taking into account the capabilities of the owner. I felt like Gulliver.
Yes, everything is fine with me!
- ..............!?
My wife fell in the bathroom and hurt her head...
On the bed, the height of a mattress, there are clean, neat bed linen. Among the pillows there is a sweet face, short haircut and clear grey eyes. A solid abrasion swells above the eyebrow, but there is no cut. With frostbite, I note that the silhouette under the blanket is also without legs. “Here he is, he is here!” I turn off my emotions. In order not to offend people with philistine curiosity about the details of the life of an extraordinary family, I try to concentrate on diagnostics. Despite the solid blow, it seemed to work out. The hematoma will disperse, there is no more serious damage. I explain everything to the woman. She suddenly starts apologizing profusely for disturbing her, etc.
It's all Kolya... He's so restless to me. So scared for me! I tell him that nothing happened. And he just screamed!..
They exchange smiles and glances. And may they ever look at you like that!.. With such love... even leaning on their only hand... even writhing on the floor...
These two stand in their eyes and the phrase “..Yes, everything is fine with me...”
💡 And also on the topic:
- I don't want children. Am I even normal? IN Lately Often we began to see publications by psychologists stating that all women should definitely become mothers. Like, this is the only way to overcome your own infantilism.
- Nowadays. Doctor's notes. Do you know what is so bad about our healthcare with its stupid reforms? The fact that you have in your hands a histology of a loved one, where the word cancer is written in black and white, but he cannot get to...
We all carry our cross. For some it is a disease, for others it is a struggle with the disease. Some people are dealing with the death of a loved one, while others are trying to cope with it. And throwing off the old cross, we are already in a hurry to put a new one on our hump. This is how people are made...
People. I'm so tired of them. I couldn’t harden myself, isolate myself from the redneck world with all its pain with a mask of irony and sarcasm, I didn’t learn to forget, I didn’t find peace in the faces of those I helped.
The cemetery is behind. The most paradoxical thing is memories. Memory is Pandora's box. You cross the road, stop at a red light, squeeze the hand of a child, and remember another, a stranger, spread out on the wet asphalt, still alive, but already halfway to eternity. The pain is unbearable, he groans, and I am afraid that I will kill him with anesthetics before we have time to arrive at the hospital.
They say that smoking kills. This is of course true.
But it’s better to let the cigarette kill me after this, it at least dulls the desire to die a little. Tribute to the dead. Let's smoke and remember. What kind of nobility can we talk about when you walk on the edge and periodically look over the edge? Give yourself a plus for saved lives and grow shameful wings? There are no noble ones in the ambulance, in the form in which people expect it. It would be too ridiculous and false.
There are no chosen ones or special ones in the ambulance, there are people whose hump loves their cross, their martyrdom, there are people who, seeing the injustice and cruelty of this world, every duty prove that they are stronger and show the whole world “the fact”.
And this too personal choice everyone.
I went into the measured, well-fed, devoid of feats life of an office clerk. Yes, this happens too. Sometimes it makes me sick. But this nausea is no stronger than what I felt looking at all that decay and degradation. People kill themselves, for the most part.
Now I don't see any of this. My nerves are not taut like guitar strings and do not make shrill sounds at the slightest touch. My loved ones exhaled, they will no longer have to tiptoe after my night shifts. I'm bored. I eat away my boredom with books, devouring them one by one, this is my salvation from attacks of green melancholy.
But nothing has changed, they were there before. How to be treated is everyone’s personal choice.
Everything goes and it is also. I used to have the same dreams in which I was performing CPR on another deserter. In these dreams, I was able to bring him back to life every time. Now I see everything from the outside, I am a spectator. Someone else is rocking someone's dead body, fighting for life, I'm intensely watching every action, I'm rooting for these Strong arms, on which depends neither more nor less, but everything.
I'm no longer a doctor. Everyone has their own ceiling. And if you have grown up to it and rest your head, you need to leave this room into another space, where you can straighten up to your full height and stretch your stiff limbs. But this is also everyone’s personal choice.
Quality No. 1 for an Ambulance specialist is composure. This can be learned, everything comes with experience. Six months - a year of work on the brigade - and there was no trace of the former shaking and fear. The only fear that remains forever is when something bad happens to the children. Then it's really scary.
It’s not difficult to get to an ambulance; the education of an emergency medical technician, paramedic or medical assistant is enough. nurse anesthetists. It is difficult to stay on the ambulance, or even more correctly to say, to become one. We don’t have random people, even if we do, they don’t linger. You need to be saturated to the bones with the spirit of traveling medicine and truly love your profession. Sometimes this will take a long time. Often those who left return with the words: “Well, I can’t sit in the office.” These people are really sick. One doctor I know is so sick of it that he has put together an incredibly cool collection of 80 different toy models of ambulances. A true fan!
Black humor in our profession through the word. At home sometimes they even fight about it. But such jokes are most likely only among us, colleagues, although sometimes others understand them too. Police officers and firefighters respond to our humor more often; we often encounter them. It’s just that humor is also an outlet for a paramedic. Personally, I play KVN, in our city there is even a whole medical KVN league, medical teams play in it. institutions. The paradox is that I'm not playing for ambulance, and for the team I organized, “Team of Morgues,” where we profess so-called humor on the verge of a foul.
In the ambulance there are people with two types of education: secondary education - a paramedic. The paramedic is the main employee of the emergency medical service; most likely, it is he who will come to your call, and doctors who graduated from medical universities are in the minority. I am an EMS doctor in a general medical team. This means that I handle calls of a potentially higher category of complexity: chest pain, arrhythmias, comas, traffic accidents, opiate overdoses, strokes. But most often, I, like other EMS employees, visit bored grandmothers, drunk unemployed citizens, and people without a fixed place of residence. I listen to their threats/complaints about health that arose 20 years ago/intimate conversations/complaints about children and grandchildren/hard life, etc., and then I figure out how to translate these social problems into a medical channel and describe them in a language understandable to doctors at insurance companies, so that everyone my departure was paid for. Only every second or third patient is actually a person with health problems.
Of course, people with a sense of humor work in the ambulance. These jokes are sometimes not just black, but the blackest. Without them, colossal mental and moral tension would simply break out in ugly forms, and when everything is ridiculed and reprimanded at once, it no longer harms, and may even end up in the golden collection of internal memes of the substation for many years. Most of We come up with these jokes from what we saw on calls, and subsequently they remain understandable and funny only to a narrow circle of colleagues - these jokes are not exported, since they can either shock an ordinary person or remain incomprehensible even after lengthy explanations.
People working in ambulances are reserved and brave; most people like the adrenaline that the profession gives. Personally, all my life since childhood I have been a very emotionally cold person, calmly reacting to other people’s pain, anger, etc. I know that panic and tears will not help matters, and the main thing in critical situations is a cold, detached mind and knowledge. And a certain amount of courage - without it we have nothing to do. It was very psychologically uncomfortable for the first year of work, but then I just got used to it. A person generally gets used to everything. Although it still happens that I feel scared for a moment, it gives me what many people go to work in the ambulance for - adrenaline.
In the ambulance, of course, there are random people, but there are also enough people who care about their work and their patients. I actually wanted to be a rescuer at the Ministry of Emergency Situations, but due to illness I could not get there. In general, EMS is not the most “criminal” place in the medical hierarchy of specialties, quite the opposite. Working without career growth, it is difficult for an emergency medical technician to retrain for another specialization. It’s a little easier for a paramedic, but again the choice is not very large. They say that if you don’t quit after a year, you’ll never quit. This is wrong. Some leave after 10 or 15 years, even in a profession that has nothing to do with medicine.
The ambulance also employs people who know how to cope with panic. Panic is a state when something happens that you don’t know and haven’t encountered before. Of course, at the beginning of the work it was very scary when the patient’s condition deteriorates, and you are alone with him. It's scary to realize your own helplessness. Then experience accumulates, knowledge is acquired and fear goes away. Fear will not go away until you know how to deal with it. And you can fight only with knowledge. Just recently I was thinking that the unknown is equal to fear.
We have a lot of women. But if it were up to me, I would completely ban women from working in ambulances. This is exhausting work; people need to be selected for it the same way they are selected for the Special Forces. The pay here is normal, but not so much that you don’t think about part-time work - often people don’t take care of themselves, work for a day, and then go to a second and third job. And women are also on the fourth - that is, home. Sooner or later some disease may develop.
