Volunteer EMT-B's

[defib_wizard]

You are right about the public having no clue what is involved in my profession. The ignorance that this is an easy, fun, exciting job is made worse when the public sees that people do it for free so it can't be like a real job.

[Michael]

How should a local daycare provider feel about your relative or neighbor who volunteers to take your children to the park without compensation, or to do so for a non-competitive wage, just because she likes them, and/or because she herself is lonely, and/or for the status she feels it gives her when passers-by admire how well-behaved the children are? What if the children are disabled and she does a job the parents feel is at least adequate?

How should the owner of a healthcare service that hires out Home Companions to invalids and the housebound elderly react when a neighborhood church sets up a home-visiting program that offers to provide equivalent services by volunteers?

How should the owner of a kennel feel about high-school or college students who offer to dog-sit or cat-sit for little or no money while you're on vacation?

I realize that in EMS, the question of volunteering is tied to the question of a tiered system, because the costs associated with, say, a paramedic's education make paramedic volunteering prohibitive for virtually any practitioner. Here I'm trying, as a thought-experiment, to evaluate the moral objection to volunteers' unjustly suppressing industry wages.

So: A retired dancer will tutor your kids for little or no money because she loves teaching and wants to keep her hand in the game. A talented friend refuses to let you pay him for playing music at your wedding. Some guy sets up a website where for no charge unhappy people can exchange wisdom and provide comfort they'd otherwise have to purchase from a psychotherapist [may no one here take this personally]. A hobbyist caters social events at a synagogue at no charge because the praise she receives means more to her than the money she could make by charging. A vain exhibitionist with a beautiful figure, motivated only by adrenaline rush and a desire to stay out of jail, advertises to serve as a free studio model. During a mass-transit strike, motorists give free lifts to people who would otherwise pay for taxis (or call 911*). The madame of a brothel complains that the sexual revolution has put her out of business by encouraging excessive competition from amateurs.

Okay, forget the last example. How does this situation compare to the one under discussion?

Some of the for-instances above may not be serious, but the question is.

*JOKE, JOKE!

[Dustdevil]

I completely understand the one's who feel their pay is directly affected by volunteers and I would agree in urban communities. Mine is not, so I am feeling a mite hypocritical. But, when you suggest other ways of volunteering, is it not a case of "not in my back yard"? All volunteering has the potential of taking away from someone's pay, even adopting a highway.

Sure, and I'm all for those people standing up for their jobs too. I simply feel that, as a growing PROFESSION (as opposed to unskilled labour, which does not constitute a group of professionals which perform a very specific function), we have more of a case than most. Do you think that EMS workers should be nothing more than unskilled labourers? And you never addressed the question: Don't you think your family, friends, neighbours, and yourself deserve better than what you can provide when their life is in the balance? Honestly, yes or no?

Some of the for-instances above may not be serious, but the question is.

Not in the least. It compares to firemen complaining about private, hospital, or third-service EMS taking their ambulances away. It is one profession trying to monopolise another job that was never rightfully theirs in the first place, and getting all pissy about it when the powers that be finally wise up and realise that they are spending more money than necessary on overtime, when more full-timers is the logical answer. This is a fight between two different professions (like the fire vs. EMS fight), not a fight within a single profession, which is what we are discussing in this thread. And, of course, during the course of that specific function, the flaggers perform the exact same job as the cops, on the same schedule as the cops. Vollies in EMS perform at a lower level than the professionals, and do so only on-call, which is many times five pages until they decide to get out of bed and drive to the firehall to pick up the ambulance. And, most importantly, the flaggers are PAID, and much better than most medics, I might add.

Damn you people! Now I'm half an hour late for physical therapy (who, by the way have four to eight years of college before entering practice, and don't even do invasive procedures, and certainly are not volunteers). Gotta go.

[ambodriver]

Never heard of volunteers in Chicago, so I can't really say I know what the deal is. Although it just sounds odd to me that people do this for free or as a hobby. Boggles my mind, but whatever. Like I said there are no volunteer EMS personal in Chicago so I don't really know how it affects me.

[Odorono]

If you truly want to save lives; organize and sponsor a local blood drive. Hand out clean needles or condoms. Better yet go forth and demand that your local ems become a paid agency where there is 24 hour 365 day a year coverage for your community.

The "saving lives" claim has got to be one one of the most crippling factors in the advancement of EMS as a profession. It's the salient underpinning to almost all forms of whackerism. If we admitted to ourselves that we "save" far fewer lives than quite a few other professions then I think EMS would begin making great strides toward the legitimacy we all claim to seek from many of those same professions.

Although I fear the Saving Lives dragon may be even harder to slay than the Fire-Based EMS one...

[WelshMedic]

First of all, dkay, let me start by saying welcome to the forum. You are definitely a welcome addition here. This subject usually degenerates into a slanging match. That hasn't happened yet, and that's partially down to your eloquence and willingness to listen to others. We may not agree, but you are sure as heck entitled to your opinion. That's what the city is for.

I look at this subject from an outside perspective, I am not in the US. I do, however, visit regularly. I very much agree with Dust, he has pointed out the most salient points that I would have made. I'm not ging to rehash those. Here's a slightly different perspective:

Healthcare here in Holland is semi-private,but it covers everyone on the principle that those who can pay, do pay. It means that there is sufficient funding for all aspects of healthcare, including EMS. Volunteerism is unheard of, even in rural areas. That's the key, charge a few $ more and you'll get what you pay for, literally.

WM

[dkay72027]

Sorry, Dust, for not answering your question earlier. I thought it was rhetorical.

My community situation may be unusual, but I have to say I am quite satisfied with the care my family would receive by our group. We have a Paramedic/RN, a EMT/RN, 4 certified Emits and 8 first responders. Both nurses are BSN's. They have been flight nurses and ER nurses. It would be more of a concern that there is no level one trauma center in the state.

Until about five years ago, there was no volunteer medical service in this area. People complained for a long time, but there were no plans by the county or the paid ambulance company for a station in this area. People just waited for the ambulance. I, personally, waited for an ambulance with my husband's grandmother for over an hour. She was in a diabetic coma and I had no training. The ambulance got lost on the dirt roads.

My husband is also an EMIT and did work for a paid service in an area with no volunteer medical help. The company, although quite eager to grow, would not provide more widespread stations in the county. People just had to wait. When the company did open a station in an underserved area, but with a low call volume, it actually delayed the raise promised to the other employees. They needed the extra money to supply and man the low call station.

I do belong to the state association and if there was a strong belief in our state of the correlation between ems pay and volunteering, I would strongly consider stopping. But I don't think private companies would be willing to lose money on low call areas, and I know the people would never agree to higher taxes to support county services. They would say, "just put duct tape on it and wait for the ambulance." (Kind of joking -- but not completely)

Thanks, everyone, for being considerate and discussing this in a civilized manner. You have restored my respect for the site.

No, he is no longer with a paid service. He was given the opportunity to make 5 times the money in an unrelated field and be his own boss.

I would love to have a paid station in our area. But, even if all the volunteers stopped volunteering, I believe it would not happen. People would just have to wait again.

[Upton4785]

These threads tend to be the most fun to read, in my opinion... that said, here's my take on volunteerism.

Volunteering is fine. Giving back to the community is great, but EMS/Fire is not the ONLY way to do it. As others have mentioned, you can pick up trash, adopt a highway, teach the community about the EMS system or get involved in programs that advocate safe sex, clean needles and overall healthy lifestyles. I think what draws people to EMS is that it's the closest to the iconic hero tale; a nameless hero flies through the night to rescue those in distress, only to take off back into the darkness with nary a glimpse back. The idea is great and works IN THEORY.

I am a volunteer EMT. I don't do it because it makes me feel good, I don't do it because I like to wear my shirt everywhere I go expecting people to pat me on the back for a job well done. I do it because it is almost impossible to get a paid EMS job in the state of NH and volunteering is my only means of getting experience to throw down on my resume. I am currently in my Intermediate class, which in no way increases my chances of getting a job on an ambulance in this damn state. So if after my class I am still unable to work on an ambulance, I will try to become an ER Tech... and I'll probably still volunteer. I'm aware that in many people's eyes, I'm only fanning the flames that are engulfing the profession and forcing it to become an ill-educated, ego-stroker's dreamland. To them I can only say "Come to New Hampshire and try getting on one of the crews and tell me it's easy, I f-ing dare you."

So I guess vollying has that one pro. If it's impossible to get a paid job, but you still want to work in the field, you can always volly. But the problem that I think we all have with most vollies (and it is a startlingly high percentage of them) are not just whackers, but sufferers of what I like to call hyperwhackerism with a touch of "I don't need no book learnin's". I personally don't have a problem with volunteers, but I seriously dislike anyone who enters this field with the intention of becoming a basic and feeling like that's the end of the educational path for them, because they know all they'll need to know to "save someone's life". That's just stupid. Education is the key to any career, especially in medicine. There's always new drugs, new procedures, new protocols and new illnesses to learn about. And always remember who you're doing it for. This isn't for you, it's not so you can expand your wardrobe with spiffy new clothes, it's not to get respect from your friends and family, it's for the poor bastard who had a stroke (no pun intended) of bad luck and wound up in the back of an ambulance and now he's counting on you to keep him alive just long enough to get him to the hospital. We're not saving lives or postponing death, we're just treating patients. And at the end of the day the only thing you should have gotten from the night was maybe a lesson or two from the other people on your squad, a paycheck if you're lucky and the satisfaction of just getting home alive.

[Michael]

safe sex, clean needles

Off-topic, but I'm reminded of a cartoon that depicts a junkie naked from the waist up (the image shows only head and torso), unshaven, with sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, matted hair, in short looking like Hell, and shooting up as he assures the reader: "Don't worry, I'm wearing a condom!"

Over to you, Chet.

[Dustdevil]

Although we sometimes slip, most of us try very hard to assure that our criticism of volunteer EMS does not come across as -- or actually turn into -- criticism of any individual volunteer themselves. I watch those union idiots, like the cops noted in Michael's article, taunting people and don't like it, so I try not to become one of them. You can hate the game without hating the player. But on the other hand, yeah... there are some players that earn the hate. :twisted:

That said, as I said in my original reply, your situation really sounds line one of those scenarios that I really don't have a problem with. Your community has EMS. They are just stretched thin and a long ways away. Expanding rural EMS does take time, but at least you have a start. And this is exactly what first responders are for. I don't have a problem with volunteer first responders. It is volunteer ambulance EMS I have a problem with. If you guys are making the effort to keep the matter at the forefront, so the county commissioners, or whoever is in charge of this, have to keep considering it, I'd say you're doing all you can do. The only problem I do have with it is the false sense of security you seem to have from a couple of RNs. If they are not practising ALS, and are stuck staring at the cardiac patient and twiddling their thumbs while waiting for the ambulance, that's not something that would give me any significant reassurance.