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While discussing the ambulance situation at NAMC, we asked that readers not bring professional personnel into the mix. Unfortunately, such requests are never heeded, and we received some interesting comments concerning emergency department nurses and physicians.
One comment lamented that ER physicians the reader saw never smiled. Perhaps there's a reason for that. Do you know what horrors these nurses and doctors see every day as they take care of your back pain or similar problems?
The security guard had a pretty easy job at the ECM ER over 30 years ago. He might see the occasional car wreck victim or local thug with a broken jaw, but the scene was usually mundane, and he liked it that way. Then one night, it became something so sickening that he had no words.
The ambulance brought in a woman and a small boy. Both had been beaten senseless by someone who should have been the first to protect them. The security guard had sons and a grandson the age of the boy. These victims became very personal to him.
The mother was treated and admitted to a room. The young boy also left the ER, but in a body bag. At the time, we were young enough that we didn't analyze every situation; we felt sympathy for the guard who had to witness such brutality.
Now we realize that as difficult it was for the security guard, it had to have been a hundred times more so for the physician who treated the boy. He tried to save the young life and failed...through no fault of his own.
The next time you think about criticizing your ER doc for not coming across as someone campaigning for governor, you might want to think about what he or she has had to face in the minutes and hours preceding your visit. You also might want to say a prayer for that doctor. We do every day.
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Something else to consider: EMTs, LEOs, nurses, firemen AND doctors, often have significant others to talk to and decompress. But too often, we don't, thinking 'they don't want/need to hear everything'. So...we/they internalize it, compartmentalize it, and stow it away...where it stays. Mostly. But sometimes, no matter the intestinal fortitude of the individual, it all comes boiling to the surface. And fir some of us, it's too much to bear any longer. There's a reason why alcoholism, divorce, and suicides are so high among 'first responders'. We aren't infallible. We're human.
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