Medic School Discussions: What Does Professional Mean to you?

**Please comment and let me know your thoughts, if I'm wrong I want to learn why and how to be better**

What Does Professional Mean to you?

professionalism: Possessing the required abilities, knowledge, and self-discipline to effectively perform a specialized action or work. As a paramedic I have to be able to quickly and accurately assess and treat a Patient. Not only do I need the knowledge and physical ability to do the work, but I need to have the self-discipline to do it appropriately, effectively, and compassionately. Because our work is so publicly available it is essential that we show ourselves in a confident, competent manner. If my patient doesn't think I’m competent because I lacked the self-discipline to tuck my shirt in and fix my hair at O’dark thirty they won’t be as receptive to my assessment or treatments.

As someone who doesn't have a lot of volunteer experience I have mixed thoughts of “professional” volunteers. On the first day of orientation at a 24/7 paramedic license service i was told never to laugh at the volunteers. No matter what they do wrong. That’s been extremely hard for me at some points. I am always extremely thankful we have volunteer EMTs that first respond in our communities. However, I think it is very hard for anyone to keep up a “professional” level of competency doing this on their off time. I have also been on scene where at O’dark thirty a volunteer jumped out of bed to meet us at a call but looks terrible. I’ve seen patients and family visibly settle when the “real” Paramedic/EMTs show up in uniform and looking semi-awake. I think a volunteer could be an EMS professional, but the majority simply can not afford the time, energy, and experience it takes to be an EMS professional.

As a full time, paid, employee of an ambulance company this is how I put food on my table. This is all I have to know how to do. I spend a minimum of 36 hours a week on a truck. During those hours I am getting paid to provide professional quality emergency medical care. I don’t have any other jobs other than being a student. Then I’m learning how to be a better, more professional EMS provider. Is every paid EMS provider a professional? I don’t believe so. Should they be? absolutely. We are the one who must take the call when a volunteer doesn’t want to. Our time is focused on keeping competent, and maintaining the abilities, knowledge, and self-discipline required to be EMS professionals.

Personally, I am always looking for means of improving myself. I am young, and still fairly inexperienced. So for me I feel my major weak spots in my professionalism are confidence, self-motivation, and time management. I am still a young provider. When I first started I was terrified to be left in the back or perform skills on a patient for fear of messing up or possibly harming a patient. Now that I’ve been doing it for a couple years I still doubt myself and my abilities at times; I know I can manage some sick and injured to my license level. Motivating myself and managing my time will be a critical skill I’m going to learn quickly from this class. I’m very motivated to do very well in this class, My only weakness is my squirrel quality attention span. my main effort will be to overcoming those and sitting down and fully completing assignments in a high quality, timely fashion.