This Just Pissed Me Off

The vast majority of ambulance crews who respond to our calls are good ones. On occasion you get the burnouts and it sucks. I hate being the caring professional who treats my patient with respect and then have to hand them over to some uncaring idiots. Normally it doesn't stick with me or bother me for long but for some reason I was fuming over these dipwads all four day.

Our patient was an elderly man who just went on hospice care a few days ago. He was having some difficulty breathing and really needed supportive care. We set him up with some increased O2 and did our best to comfort his wife as well. He was pretty much ready to go when the ambulance arrived.

This ambulance crew happened to have an intern with them. Now, I was an intern once and I know what it is like so I try to let them do their thing and kind of help them out. However, the regular ambulance crew came in and didn't say a word. Not one word to me, my crew, or their intern. I usually look to the preceptor to get an idea of what he expects out of the intern and how the guy is doing. I got nothing from this guy. So, I gave the intern a complete rundown and told him we would have to carry the patient out to the gurney. The intern asked if the patient had a DNR which was an excellent question although it was most likely not going to be needed on this call. The patient's wife said yes, but was obviously not prepared for this to come up so soon and was very flustered by the thought of him needing it. I tried to reassure her that we just needed to know what kind of directives he had but would not even be going lights and sirens to the hospital. She could not seem to locate the DNR and this seemed to be hanging up the intern. The other two "medical professionals" still had not said a word and were standing shoulder to shoulder in the doorway of the bedroom blocking any access or egress.

 

I went outside to see where the gurney was and which way it was facing so I could plan how to take the patient out. When I arrived back inside the scene was unchanged. Our patient needed to get to the hospital and this crew was still standing there doing nothing. My firefighter, probably reading the expression on my face, had taken up position behind the patient ready to help lift and carry him. My way was blocked by the ambulance tools so I merely looked my firefighter in the eye and said, quite loudly, "Are you ready?" and pushed my way unceremoniously into the room between them. I took the patient's legs and my firefighter took his upper body and we took him out to the gurney and started bringing the gurney to the ambulance.

Now, my firefighter and I do a lot of lifting and carrying of patients in our district and we don't mind it at all. But, when the ambulance crew doesn't even feign assistance and behave like these bozos did it really bothers me. Normally, I am able to just shake my head, talk smack and berate them when I get back in the engine, then move on and forget about it. But, for some reason, these clowns really got to me and every time I thought about it over the next few days it made me angry all over again.