A UNR student I know is passionate about providing health care to marginalized communities. After working as an EMT, though, she decided that line of work might be too much for her, and is instead now pursuing dentistry. This woman would like to remain unnamed but was remain to share her experiences in candid detail.
As a student in college, she is passionate about health care, so she took opportunities to explore what profession in the field would fit her the most. She first volunteered in medical clinics across Reno to test if she enjoyed assisting patients.
“So, I started volunteering, and I noticed that I liked the pace of coming in a room, getting to know someone, seeing what was going on with themselves, and coming up with a conclusion on how to help them, right? But I was like, I feel like I can do more. So, then I was like, let me go into maybe emergency medicine,” she said.
With the encouragement of one friend to pursue becoming an EMT, she enrolled in Truckee Meadows Community College. In the summer of 2022, she got her EMT certification through a class at TMCC. She felt empowered after learning how to take care of people on the spot and think on her feet. But with such power comes great pressure. She mentioned how when a person has this job, they simply cannot overthink because “you have like someone’s life on your hands,” she said. She wanted to discover her place in the future, and the life of an EMT was the first uniform she tried on.
No matter what position in health care this student is in, she loves positively impacting others. In her time working as an EMT, the most rewarding aspect was being able to help others. The heart-to-heart moments with patients stick out to her.
“I think he was probably homeless,” she remembers of one interaction. “He was really dehydrated, and he just donated blood. So he was like really, really bad. So I remember the EMT gave him the IV, and I was just listening to him, and he was like, Thank you so much for listening to me. Like, I appreciate your help and thank you guys for taking me to the hospital. Yeah, so it's like little things that I noticed that I was really satisfied with the health care”.
At this point, she has been working as an EMT for almost two years. Throughout this time, she has provided medical assistance to many individuals and enjoyed doing so.
“At least like if I make their day, I was like happy about it, yeah,” she said.
One of her first calls she had was for a soccer player who hit his head and fell on his back too hard.
Another time she answered the call of a Hispanic family concerned about a lady who looked extremely dehydrated. In moments like this, she educates patients on how and why they must look after their well-being.
She also mentioned an intense call she didn’t like so much, rushing to a victim of a stabbing to the abdominal area.
A situation as dire as this does not allow a person to overthink; only pursue action. She remembers the paramedics commanding her to apply pressure and to just do something to help. She discloses that this was a traumatic moment for her, that she even thinks about it from time to time.
“Yeah, I do,” she admits. But like they say, time heals. But I always think that I freaked out and then I like kind of like froze,” she remembers. Fortunately, the patient made it to the hospital and survived. Even when the patient receives the needed medical attention and everyone is safe, intense and impactful calls like this tend to linger.
“I took it home. I was thinking, what if I could have done this? What if I could have done that? And that's when I was like, okay, maybe let me think about this career again,” she said.
Working as an EMT has many challenges; and she points to two big challenges specifically. The first is not knowing how to handle the situation, so you have to improvise. There is no time to think, so every moment matters.
“Do your best to serve, help someone if they're in like life or death,” she explained.
The second challenge is the anxiety that comes with working a shift. “Sometimes I would go in the ride-along or like the ambulance and think about it,” she said. “I'm like, what if I'm going to do CPR and I don't know where to ride? What if you don't survive, and I'm going to take that. I was like always overthinking it.” She started feeling out of place.
“When it got to like moments that ugly scenarios, I was like wishing, I was like wishing. I know it's bad, but I was like wishing not to be there, which is not good,” she said. “And I was like, why am I doing something I'm like always stressful, you know? Like I wasn't happy to be there. I was just in stress mode, which wasn't good.”
Through these tense times, she got to know herself better.
“It helped me realize that maybe ER or emergency medicine wasn't for me,” she said. “Or like medicine, and maybe go in another because there are so many ways to help people. So, yeah, it made me realize that.”
As she mentioned, she wants to know how her day is going to go; she does not want to bring traumatic moments home, and she ultimately enjoys educating others about health care more than directly running calls on an ambulance. Using this newfound insight, she decided to pursue dentistry instead. So as she wraps up her senior year of college she is now working towards becoming a dentist.
“So I was like, let me shadow a dentist, and I noticed that they do meaningful things … Like someone comes with pain, they fix it right away, you know,” she explained.
Another benefit for her in pursuing dentistry is the steadier work-life balance dentists have and that she says she would no longer experience that constant negative stress.
Ultimately, she is passionate and wants to make a positive impact in the livelihood of others through any kind of health care. Although working as an EMT was not what she wanted to pursue as a longterm profession she grew during this time. She wanted to emphasize that this is her story working an EMT and that it just wasn't the right fit for her, but it could be the right fit for other people.
“I just want to say that that just because I say like ‘it was bad for me for me for being a first responder’ it can be different for someone else like I feel like everybody has a purpose to be here in life, you know and probably me being an EMT wasn't like the one but that's okay. There's a lot of other careers that you can help people you can still do something meaningful in life,” she concluded.
Contribution by Samuel Fernando Rea Ramirez in collaboration with a COM 210 UNR class with Amy Pason