This will probably be long… hold on….
I also was a paramedic, in Ft Lauderdale, about 3 hrs south of Orlando.
I finished respiratory therapy education in 1977, and wanted a wider body diagnostic view, so I did the training. I was also already a registered EKG technologist.(we weren’t able to read them, theoretically, but we’d sure better be able to get someone’s attention if they were dangerously abnormal, instead of just shoving them in the chart!)
The story one of my later instructors told me was more important the more time passed: Two people were walking along the seashore, and one of them saw a starfish stranded above the water. He picked it up and threw it back into the water. His companion said,” There are millions of starfish in the ocean, that one won’t make any difference !” The answer struck home: “It’ll make a difference to that one.”
I am so glad I heard that before I really got deeply into healthcare. Through the decades, that story has buoyed me up so many times. I have told it multiple of multiple times to coworkers, students, many people. It is a shame this author hasn’t had the benefit of the tale. When he got the droops, it might have helped.
I worked both jobs for about two years, and loved both. Then, one night, I was trying to start an IV on a drunk who was fighting, in the dark, in the grassy median between Northbound and Southbound I-95, with light from the truck and my flashlight.
My partner was with the other victim, and everyone else was busy. The officer was trying to help control the patient and holding the IV bag. It was cold, it was drizzling a bit, and windy. I thought, “Forget this, I’m going back to my well-lit, climate controlled ER!” I kept on for a while, and then carried on with hospital work, mostly in ICU and ER. (There are plenty of stories there, too!)
Now retired from medicine, at nearly 75 years old, I miss it terribly, but what I miss are the people and the work itself, not the massive amounts of paperwork, documentation, more paperwork, and more documentation.
I have one caveat for anyone that contemplated doing CPR: after many decades, it absolutely trashes your back and hips! Now, the policy is two minutes at a time, then switch, but In the 70’s and 80’s we would do it and switch off for much longer times. My low back and hips are ruined: I would not change a thing! The pain and surgeries are absolutely worth it, because I made a difference to a large number of starfish!
*** Maybe I should write a book, too!**