International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc.
International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc.
By: J. Paul Davis, Director/Chief of EMS;
MED-ACT- Emergency Medical Services, Olathe, KS
These words have been uttered and heard many times over our career when we’re asked how we’re doing. Our employees have said them, you have said them, and I have said them. ”I’m fine.” has become a standard answer, but what does it mean?
Obviously, it means that we’re alright, copacetic, okay, or good. We have no concerns, problems, or issues causing us to be distracted, agitated, or troubled. Right? Certainly when we say, “I’m fine.” it means we’re unworried and untroubled. Well, I guess so.
I have been saying, “I’m fine.” a lot lately. And I think I am, I’m pretty sure I am, but I am also wondering about it. Certainly, I try not to overthink it, but it does keep coming back around.
I love my work and I believe it is a vocation to minister. I am a public safety lifer from right out of high school and have been involved in community service since my early teens. I enjoy my job and I really appreciate my medics and staff. Although that seems like an understatement to me, I want to acknowledge them.
Those women and men continually exhibit their courage, resilience and dedication to serve our community every day without hesitation. I have come to expect nothing less from them than integrity, compassion, humility and their pursuit of excellence. In this era of pandemic they, like others on the front lines, have extra challenges and they overcome them with grace.
It is my job to make sure our department has what it needs to meet our mission; an excellent corps of personnel, a comprehensive logistics programs and a solid fiscal policy. In normal times there are obstacles to success, but we press ahead and overcome them. Right now each one of these key pillars is especially challenged.
Ensuring an excellent corps of personnel means that we recruit the best candidate. Hiring the right person for this work is a difficult task. Not only do we need someone with the cognitive skills and psychomotor proficiencies, we absolutely need our candidates to have the appropriate affective attributes. Recruitment used to be difficult because we had to compete with other public safety and healthcare professions. Now, it seems more about competing with misconceptions about our work and a high degree of social apathy.
The pandemic situation creates added challenges to the hiring process as well. Local and state coronavirus mandates; physical distancing, facial barriers, hands-free processes, and symptom screenings create challenges to effective assessment centers and interview practices. A vital component to ensuring personnel excellence is education and training. Considering the aforementioned mandates, we have and will continue to develop ways to work through training and simulations that meet our needs and achieve high quality programming.
Ensuring a sound logistics program is challenged as well. Everything from PPE management, equipment disinfection and sterilization, and vehicle cleaning has taken on new dimensions. How many times can you reuse a mask before it starts smelling like dirty arm-pit? If you know the answer to that, then you might be reusing it too many times.
What is the best disinfection process? UV, Ozone, peroxide, bleach, purple tops, gold tops? What hand sanitizing solution is the least toxic for your staff? Do you have the MSDS appropriately displayed and available? Each of these have aspects we must consider. Each process has a degrading effect on certain equipment and structures in our vehicles. Not all supplies can be exposed to the disinfection processes and there is no one disinfection process that cleans everything. So, we ask, what did we miss, what is left over to harm our patients or crews? I suppose these concerns should always be on our minds, not just during a pandemic, because Clostridium difficile and Hepatitis-B are still a thing.
Of course the interruption in supplies and equipment procurements causes us to re-think things. Drug shortages have become typical, but nitrile gloves and hand sanitizer and BVMs…who’d-have-thunk it?
I cannot speak for our police, fire and emergency communications colleagues, but many of us in the EMS and ambulance transport realm saw significant reductions in responses and transports. That translates to a reduction in revenue for most. And since local tax subsidies, if any, vary across the country, some services were hit much harder than others. A reduction in revenue, if sustained, often times means a reduction in services. CARES Act funds certainly provide a cushion for finances, but adds layers of administration to ensure compliance with the grant provisions. In many cases these are layers some of us don’t have so it creates extra work and takes time away from managing our other day-to-day priorities.
It is not my intention to dampen spirits or complain, not at all. My intention is to talk about some of the things on my mind and challenges I’ve heard from some of my colleagues and friends. I undoubtedly believe that as public safety administrators and commanders, regardless of the discipline, we seek to do the right thing for the right reason for the good of the public.
We stand with our medics, police officers, firefighters, dispatchers and our staff to ensure we meet our mission to serve our communities. Some of us are having rocks thrown at us by the very people we have chosen to serve and protect. Our heroic employees find themselves in harm’s way more often than what they used to, yet they remain unwavering in their commitment.
Our residents, employees, elected officials and managers expect us to be strong; physically strong, mentally strong and spiritually strong. Our families expect the same from us and to be there and protect them, now more than ever. However, we must not forget we are human. We encounter challenges, we get frustrated and short-tempered. Many times we fail but we did not get to this point in our career without being resilient. Our success comes from the ability to recognize the opportunities our challenges create and the willingness to learn from our failures and adapt.
The next time someone asks how you’re doing and you reply, “I’m fine.” spend some time reflecting on that statement. What does it mean to be fine? Are you coping well? Perhaps you are and everything is good. But, if you find yourself experiencing extraordinary, unresolved challenges then don’t hesitate to reach out to a trusted peer. This work can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be disheartening nor devastating.
I wish the very best for all of my commander colleagues, my medics and staff.
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International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc is a 501(c)3 Non Profit