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Greetings, This site was recommended by a collegue. I have been wandering aimlessly through posts to get a feel for things. Having recently read the pros and cons thread it looks like I am in the right place and I will check my ego at the door! I have been working EMS for 12 years and have been a paramedic for 7. My experience is mostly rural where I have always worked full time EMS and have had the great fortune to be somewhat busy. Rural has always appealed to me because I enjoy working with the doctors, nurses, lab and x-ray to stabilize, then long transports to primary centres. I do miss the sharpness that came from working in the city where calls were more of a reflex; now I have to think my way through calls and con ed has become critically important. I have been working industrial for the past 3 years and I have to admit that I enjoy it most of the time. The urban services seem to be limiting paramedics practice recently and industrial is expanding it... It is an exciting time to be in EMS.

You may think that I'm sniping, but I'm truly not...at least not only... But the hero complex often seems to be issues with turnout gear. And you know what? From a behavioral science point of view I've kind of come to forgive that. If every time I looked at a newspaper, or turned on the television I saw images and actions of paramedics doing bullshit heroic stuff. If every time there was a fender bender there was some one from the President on down congratulating me for my heroism..how long would it be before I'd watch one of those shows and think? "Holy shit! I've not turned a wheel in weeks, I'm over weight, out of shape, can't take a B/P...but you know what? I fuckin' rock!! The president just said so for the 12th time this week! I love being a hero....." Doesn't mean that I will ever accept it, but when you consider the mentality of many firemen (Just a note to restate the fact that some of my most inspirtational education as a student medic came from the fire services in the Springs. And I've known some tried and true dedicated smoke eaters that I am in awe of. But the other 99% just piss me off.) and the reasons that their 'dream' is to be a fireman, how much of this shit can they be bombarded with without it beginning to warp their psyche. How many times can you hear 'thank you' from the Denny's waitress before you begin to believe that you deserve it, even if you don't? As has been stated before. I've heard 'thank you' a gazillion times. Though I've never been surprised when it didn't happen, of course I'm grateful when it does. Well, one time when it just makes me crazy? When the drunk is saying over and over, "Thank you! Oh God, thank you...God loves you, no one understands me...Thank you.." Shut the F' up... Did I get anywhere near answering the question? Dwayne Edited for a small format change. Not significant changes made.

So I was looking on Facebook and one post from a co-worker caught my eye. It was a post about being an EMT/Medic/Firefighter and how people NEED to thank us for the job we do. While I realize there is some pride in our jobs when does pride turn into the "Hero Complex"? Let me define my definition, to me the Hero Complex is when pride gets taken too far and you believe that EVERYONE should Thank you for your service and they should bow down to your because you are the "mighty lifesaver". (Hmm Sorta sounds paragod-ish) Well, maybe I am just naive here or maybe I am just strange, but I don't think anyone owes me anything for being in my profession. This is what I want to do and this is what I love. If I get a Thank You out of something hey thats cool but if I don't thats ok too. As long as I know I did my best for the patient. So while some may feel this is an overreaction on my part, the person who posted this on Facebook is one that feels they need to be held on higher ground because they "save lives". They believe that once you become an EMT or Medic that you are the hero. It makes me wonder if some people are getting into EMS for the wrong reasons. So here is my question to you, do you feel that there is a point where job pride becomes a hero complex? Do you think that people NEED to thank you because you save lives? I want true honest opinions here. At what point do we draw the line and say this is a thankless job and we all need to put our big kid undies on and just accept that?

http://www.ems1.com/communications-dispatch/articles/1176018-After-childs-death-family-questions-Houston-ambulance-response/

Shit Dwayne, we would not even row there sober in the first place....the bloody kiwis keep coming over here.........well i do see the appeal in that. the old joke........would the last one out f NZ please turn off the light.......

Shouldn't it also have one of those euro/aussie funny spelled word in it too though?

Dear WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot: Firstly the traditional welcome to EMT CITY, very pleased you have jumped on board, er got off your bloody backside and signed in ... seriously we need more with the gusto you have, for Pre Hospital Medicine, this is the start of journey that you will never regret .. lots of talent and a world wide perspective of EMS here and some bite. I certainly hope your "back to back" i.e an offshore term will join this party of dysfunctional yet mildly demented group. Should I point out your not in a forest your in the "SKEG !" young grasshopper, for those reading Whiskey is one of "those" I am attempting to recruit to the dark side, he's just the first of a few that will be joining the "festivities" I look forward to your first post and don't think for one minute I will be nice to you cheers

We had a temp once that came here with a crap attitude... I can be very patent but when she screemed at our local VFF and they said to me to make her shut up or they wouldn't come to a scene if she was there it was time to make her realize that she wasnt all that. It was one public moment with a bike rider vrs road. He was drunk and not happy. She was trying to do a spinal senerio without any real success as no one but me was willing to help her (only because I had to . We finally got on the collar and he was strapped in the clam shell, when it came time to tape his head she was struggling with it so I came up to the pt with the O2 tank lifted the head up and was able to do a good tape job that wasn't slipping. She looked a little stunned so I said "If you respect the people that are around you that have the little tricks they will be willing to show them to you, but since you yell at everyone and make them feel stupid no one wants to help" and went to my end to do the lift. She looked at a FF for help (she was little) at her end and he came to help, he said lets start new. It is sometime something very little that will make a hero realize that they have to rethink their actions and in this case it was an O2 tank trick.

So she already knows everything as a STUDENT? I would LOVE to get this girl as my partner- she would be in for a very rude awakening.

Thanks everyone for the input. I just wanted to get others' thoughts on this. I guess if you knew this person you would understand. She is in medic classes and is already the "paragod awesomest bestest paramedic in the WORLD". She bad talks all of the area departments that she rides with saying they don't know how to run codes, take care of patients properly, etc. So when a patient does not personally thank her she believes they are ungrateful for her even though she just "saved their life" (put on a bandaid). I am not trying to bad talk her but I think there is a limit and to me she hit the limit and has no business in this business.

Crikey, Kiwi, that was quite snarky.

Well fine I was going to come to your house, cook up some steaks and we could get absolutely fucking blind drunk on the good $300 a glass stuff I bought at the airport but hmmph! up yours mate, I might just come by and pistol whip the shit out of you now Nah more than that now that we've let all the bloody Indians cab drivers with Masters Degrees in Engineering and Economis and Chinese students in LOL funny, you're getting the hang of it ... And yes, I am well adept at confusing Americans with Kiwi speak, oh and generic drug names like salbutamol

I may regret making this my first post but here goes: Professionalism is in a sad and sorry state in EMS for a couple of reasons in my opinion. The first is that we do not have the long history and rigourous hiring standards of our counterparts in Fire and Police. Fire departments have a paramilitary history where they can smack down the new people and they are strict in their hiring practice, not to mention the history and PR that comes along with being a Fire Fighter; in general there is an instant sense of pride and belonging when you get hired on to a fire department ( I leave out volunteer systems though in my experience the same can hold true depending on the service). Police officers also go through rigourous hiring processes and psycological evaluations. When your first partner is an old burned out medic it becomes difficult to find the sense of pride. Secondly we have kids straight out of school getting into EMS that have not worked a day in their lives and thought EMS sounded cool. They have little respect for what they have undertaken and the effect they will have on other people. As a fire fighter these young people get a mentoring system where they work with a team and earn their way up the ranks. In EMS we work with one other person that may or not be as experienced/proffesional as would be hoped for. We have a certain autonomy on the ambulance that leads to bad behaviour without appropriate supervision and/or leadership (I speak from personal experience as I was, shamefully, incredibly unproffessional when I started in this industry). I don't think people new to the industry really understand the humility of a person entrusting the care of their family member to us. I don't think they understand the significance of the responsibility of what they are taking on. To improve proffessionalism we first need a better mentoring system, where newbees can be taught the significance of what we are doing and the importance of how we present ourselves both personally and as an industry. We need a better work environment with reasonable work hours and high expectations from supervisors that walk that walk and show what a proffessional looks and acts like. Pride in the proffession comes from working with people that take pride in it in the first place. If the rest of the service is taking pride in what they do and presenting themselves well, if they support their collegues that are experiencing burn out, we will get better people representing our industry. I feel sorry for the guy that yelled at a doctor. He doesn't feel respected, he doesn't respect himself or his carreer and he has no concept that he will never get that respect so long as he behaves the way he is. Respect is earned not demanded, so If he doesn't feel respected then earn it by shutting up and working harder for it instead of blowing up at the doctor and looking like an a**.

First bloke is Super CrookTM so he's going to get a tube, second bloke needs some fluid to fix up his neurogenic shock provided we exclude internal bleeding (as confidently as we can), third bloke is DOA (ROLE) It's worth a chat on the ambo phone to the local hospital to see if they can accept these patients for initial stabilisation because there's no way in bloody hell that somebody can sit on a bag mask and ventilate the intubated fella for as long as its gonna take for the plane to get up here. I bet the poor SHO at the little hospital is going to have kittens when we roll up

Just wanted to bump this topic up to figure out how this scenario proceeded. I'm a student looking to create some scenarios for group discussion and came across this. I was thinking about alternative causes of seizures and did some research (cheated) and found a probable cause. I don't want to just go ahead and blurt it out because I researched (cheated). So I will ask more questions to get a better picture. Was the mom able to elaborate more on the sickness and reason for the "Kef..." medication use? How recently was he put on this medication?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIYvD9DI1ZA For all your kiwi accent educational needs.....

would like to see it on the other foot..... "yes send that ALS ambulance to the house to see if it is alight and decide if a fire applialce will be required...." what a blood stuffed up system, hose jockey tossers are just that, why on earth you would need to send them FIRST on a medical call is beyond me stay safe

I remember in Paramedic school, I made some kind of off-hand comment that put down some profession, with the attitude that I was superior because of my profession, and my teacher tore me a new one. As she pointed out, every job is important, and there is no job that is superior to another. If the garbage man fails to do his job, he will lose it, and his job is just as important to his family, himself, and his community as any other job. If anything, we should thank our patients for calling us. 99% of them could get in a car and make it to the ER just fine.

I got a public "Thank You" from a member of my congregation, who thanked me with a donation to our house of worship, and the mention in the congregation's Bullitin. Not bad for handholding, and the "Stare Of Life", for just walking to the corner while off duty from my house.

To add an other angle of view: yes, I expect a "Thank you". I even expect respect for what I do and for me. But I'm old enough to be not surprised, when it doesn't come. I would expect the same, when I am a bank clerk or a fruit seller, and I myself spend a simple thank you more often than not. For me, a "thank you" and respecting others is an important part of social life. Even trying to teach this my kid. A little "thank you" doesn't hurt. Again: it's no way to be surprised, when there comes nothing back. In my career EMS department I really expect to be paid, this comes more or less from public sources. I even would expect to be better paid, so the real people who have to take a certain impression of us is the public in general. There i would consider all weapons are allowed. If they thank us with better wages (and in my volly service with better equipment, better funding for education and clothes), then I even would bear the burden of an hero image. But since there always is some kind of whining attached to getting a hero image ("please please consider me a hero, look how cool I am!"), I preferably leave this to the (then mostly volunteer) fire service. It would be better - in my eyes - to have the image of a professional provider (even when volunteer!), doing a professional work in the rear end of social risk-management, based on high-level education and certainly deserving a high-level pay (or, as a volunteer: the best equipment available). BTW, for my personal juvenile male hero ego it's enough to be summoned out, getting in my hero-suit (even if no phone boot available) and run the streets in my bat-car. Hooray! Thank you for reading!

I didn't get into this job to be thanked, or thinking that I would be thanked very frequently, and while I appreciate it when it comes, I don't expect it. The thanks I get comes in the form of a paycheck, and from being able to make a difference. Oftentimes, the difference I make is something that the patient may not even realize has changed their condition or their outcome (giving aspirin or calling a STEMI/stroke alert so the hospital can be ready to get the patient to the right care as soon as they get there; getting an IV so the hospital can draw blood or have immediate access for fluids or medications in the future even if they don't need them right this minute; etc). It's enough that I know that I've made a difference in their outcome, even if they don't. I'll contend what one person said about police, fire and EMS being thankless jobs. I think that there are two thankless jobs there, not three. Sorry to all the firefighters out there, because I know there's times when you're not appreciated the way you should be, but compared to police and EMS, you're way ahead of the curve. Firefighters ARE "America's Heroes", plain and simple. And while EMS and police are appreciated by some, I don't think that it's anywhere near the same degree and--at least in EMS--it's really all our own fault. We eat our own, fight amongst ourselves when we should be banding together against EMS's common enemy and biggest threat: pro-fire, anti-progressive EMS fire departments and fire organizations. We don't market ourselves and we pay the price for it when we show up on medical calls with fire first response and our patients thank the fire department and ignore us or when the fire department gets additional funding and EMS is asked to "make due" with what we've got, regardless of the actual needs of the departments. Anyway, sorry to get off on that anti-fire tangent. I love the fire department for what they do (fight fires), but I disagree with how the majority of them view and run EMS. All the same, they've managed to turn themselves into America's Heroes and become THE folks people want to love and thank. If we in EMS want to be appreciated, it's not going to come from continuing with "business as usual", but from marketing ourselves (because EMS IS a business, like it or not), and from making ourselves known and visible to the public. It IS important that we are appreciated, because as we can see with the fire service, the monetary and political benefits of being appreciated and liked by the public are tremendous and those are benefits that I think most EMS agencies could benefit from. But it's gonna take a lot of work for us to reach that level of appreciation, and even longer if we don't start taking a proactive approach to it.

Look in their eyes. That is where true thanks comes from (or F-bombs, said or unsaid). With old people especially, they will reach out to your hand with theirs. Not much needs to be said to be understood.

Awesome story, That makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it? All the sleepless nights, the horrible calls, the wear and tear on your body. Those type of calls often seem to come when you really need them, don't they?

I hope I'm not hijacking this thread, but I have a story of a thank you. At the end of a call (refusal at that), I asked the patient if there was anything else I could do before I left. The elderly lady looked at me and asked if she could give me a hug. Her daughter (whom I believe had some slight retardation) looked at me and wanted to know if she could get a hug too. ABSOLUTELY! What a way to end a late night call for an elderly woman with hugs all around. (FYI, there is zero sarcasm in that.) To me, that was the best kind of thanks.

I read your post again and think I was thinking of a different “hero complex” than you. I think you where thinking more on the lines of the narcissistic, egomaniac that thinks their patients should adore them and feel privileged that they had time to step away from their mirror long enough to run a call “hero complex”. Society does not owe us for choosing a profession of public service. Maybe instead of the patient paying for their transport they could instead give them the The Disney Princess Magic Talking Mirror Set that parrots “you look lovely today” and stuff like that. Or a battery powered box of applause so they can feel special at their leisure. All joking aside. Some folks just never grasped the concept that you don’t deserve thanks for a job you are being paid to do and the idea “that it is more blessed to give than to receive. However, when people do say "thank you" it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside for several reasons. First I am human and appreciation is always a bonus. To me a thank you means "you helped me" it means I was able to be cordial and connect with the patient on some level. Thank you, means the level of care met or exceded the patients expectation even when the results are poor. Thank you means the patient perceived my genuine empathy. Thank you means I was able to be professional, thank you, means the patient perceived that I was able to make a difference in their life. Thank you means I made the patient or relatives feel I was willing to go the extra mile. Thank you means i was an patient advocate,Thank you means I did my job. So yea, I enjoy a thank you as much as the next guy but never expect it.

Defib No I am glad you challenged me on this. I can see it from your stand point but I have to agree with the others. If someone expects a thank you I dont think EMS is the place for them. Yes, we do get thanked. I do know there are people out there that appreciate the emergency responders. I guess just knowing this person it made me mad because I know she expects the thanks and when she doesnt get it She takes it as they are ungrateful. TCRIPP- Maybe hero complex isnt the right word. It was what popped into my head at the time. I just dont think we should have expectations that everyone will say thanks. Its great when they do but if they don't thats ok too. It is a time of emergency for them and depending on whats going on, I dont doubt that they are grateful that someone answered the call. Am I making any sense?? Ash

I'm not sure if hero complex is the right word for it. When I think of hero, I think of Batman/Superman/etc who do what they do without expectation of gratitude. Of course, I can't figure out the right word(s) for it. Egomaniac? Egoistic? Egotistic? I do hear what you are saying. No, I don't think we should expect people to thank us. HOWEVER, it's feels awfully good when they do and reminds me that helping someone is the reason I got in to this business in the first place. To add to this, when I was a volunteer, it was easy to accept the thanks. After all, I was doing this on my own time and, occasionally and at my own cost. Once I went paid, it was harder to accept the thanks. As Happiness wrote, it took me a long time not to look to the floor and blush. Agree with you 100% - and that's the reason for the + post. Agree with you 100% - and that's the reason for the + post.

I am going to have to disagree with you on this topic. In fact I am going to approach it from an entirely different angle. As a preface a would say that we all are “risk takers” to a degree and have a desire to contribute to our communities in a positive and most importantly proper way. I am assuming that by “hero complex” you are referring to the whackers that ride around with scanners, equipment ect. The persons that have a constant desire to ride up on the MVC that requires Extraction or the CPR victim so they can “crack some ribs” and tell their buddies about it later. I would contend this is not pride at all but a delusional projection of an alter ego that is rooted in their low self esteem, past failures and current inadequacies. This is why we often find them on the fringe of a formal service. They don’t like rules, have training but not always the adequate or proper training and have difficulty relating to professional providers. It is almost like they would like to project a person that they would like to be but are not. The rest of us are proud. In fact most of us are very proud of our profession and skills. We worked hard to get them and use them for the greater good. We show our pride through professionalism. We perform the right job, through the right means based on the right training. We show our pride by dressing sharp, showing up on time, treating people with courtesy and working within the rules and regulations of our protocols. I would conclude that for me, pride and the “hero complex” are opposite behaviors with opposite results. No thank you is required.

I don't expect thanks, its nice for somebody to say it because sometimes people genuinely are quite grateful e.g. Nana picked up off floor but it's just an added bonus

Why would someone NEED a thank you for doing their job- regardless of what your profession happens to be? Is it nice- sure. Is it appreciated? Absolutely. Is it necessary? No way. For me, whether or not I get a "thank you" depends primarily where I work. When I was in the ghetto full time, I would RARELY get a thank you, and when it did happen, it was usually from the elderly folks. Generally we would hear things like "do your m-f'in job", or something else derogatory- as soon as we pull up on the scene. It usually didn't even faze me- it was so common. The running gag is when someone leaves the ghetto and they start dealing with tax payers again, they have no idea how to react when someone says THANK you, instead of F___ You. LOL The other group who we often would have a problem with- yuppies. They always seem to have this entitlement mentality where they feel everyone else exists to serve and indulge them. It is VERY tough to keep my tongue in check when dealing with that group- for some reason they just get on my last nerve. Now I deal more with elderly and with middle class tax payers who often express their appreciation to us. It's funny- my treatment never changes, regardless of what groups we deal with, but their reaction to us is quite different. Another thing that amuses me is that the folks where you go the extra mile, do all the little things, or work really hard to keep someone alive- they often don't express appreciation. Then you get the little old lady who has a very stable general weakness complaint for weeks- nothing special- and they thank you profusely- as if you walked on water for them. Go figure... LOL

I am thanked all the time by my patients or by the family. It took me along time not to look at the floor and blush. Now I just say your welcome and thats that. Patients are just sometimes just polite and want to say it. When it becomes expected is the time that person should be out of the profession

I've been doing this for 20 years. I think I had thank you said to me a handful of times. I didn't expect it nor did I look for it. I accepted that this is a thankless job a long time ago. I didn't get into it for the money and I am in no way a hero.

Teachers, cops, firefighters, EMTs, Paramedics, soldiers.... there's a reason these are called THANKLESS jobs. If someone feels the need to be thanked for their job, perhaps it's time to move on to something else.