- Date posted
- 14h
patient interaction in EMS I am overthinking
I feel really mad at myself because there was this patient on one of my ride-alongs that we picked up from some kind of psych ward and the EMTs had to restrain him and put him in a spit hood because he was deemed as a danger to himself and/or others and he was spitting when we arrived on scene. He was extremely hypertensive and wasn’t talking at all so the paramedic had to take a blood glucose level. Long story short if the paramedic didn’t sedate him like he did the patient would have gone into cardiac arrest. I talked to this patient the whole time he was awake saying “it’s okay. You will get there safe.” The paramedic after the call told me that it was good of me to talk to the patient but that I don’t need to because he said the patient didn’t care. He then said that the ER we dropped him off saw him before and the cops said he had beat his girlfriend almost to death 5 times. Because I was tired of the paramedic seeing me as a naive young woman and because at the time I still harbored anger for when my loved one had to go to the ER for almost getting killed by her boyfriend, I said under my breath, “what a piece of shit.” And something like, “I’m glad I didn’t know that because I don’t know if I would have treated him differently.” I feel HORRIBLE for saying this because clearly I care about this patient. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him and his suffering to the past 2 months. But I feel like a horrible person for making this comment, and I overthink restraints and taking the blood glucose even though it was medically necessary because of my sexual trauma. I REALLY want to be an EMT but I keep thinking about this one patient interaction and I’m worried I won’t have the mental capacity to do this job when it comes to psychiatric patients like this patient. I care about EVERY patient and patient autonomy so much so that I can already see it is getting in the way of me doing my job and needing to use restraints when the person is a danger to themselves or others or needing to take vital signs for these patients. I know they are necessary but I didn’t like that this paramedic made this comment. And instead I am shaming myself.