Touching The Past

I was thinking today as was sitting drinking my coffee, at the local coffee shop, about what it must of been like back in the early birth years of EMS. What the calls must have been like. How the equipment, we now have on display at departments, really felt like to use. Crouching in the back of a herse bumping down the road at 70mph.  Only those who were there, would know.

 I soon realized though we can be in touch with the past through things we do, to this day. If you can just imagine with me , lets touch the past. How many of you still wash trucks, still were uniforms or educate those you work with? I know for a while I used to hate washing trucks because it takes work to make that spotless shine.  Or wearing that uniform when its 110 degrees outside and you would rather be in shorts.

Think for just a second though , those before washed trucks back in the early days of EMS too. They took pride in their equipment and uniforms. They did what they could for their patients, even if it was holding a hand. To often these days , we get this idea of that we could do more. We have gotten spoiled in the 21st century. We have fantastic equipment that those before us could only have dreamed of in a science fiction. We complain about button up unifroms, so we move to t-shirts. We say well we wish we had those new doodads, and whatch-a-ma-lifesaving thingies.  Those before utilized what they had and improvised, adapted and overcame.

To often we put down the past EMS practices as archaic or no longer used. We tell EMT students how these practices used to be done , and how idiotic they are. We need to realize with the all the advances of medicine in the modern age, that we are only here because of the things we learned in the past.  Mast Pants were supposed to save lives but we realized that they were more work and the science really wasnt behind the practice. Long spine boards saved some lives but also caused more long term damage that they didn't realize. If we didn't have these objects who knows where we would be today. We might still be a non existent entity.

Another problem with today's culture is the fact that we want education given to us on a silver platter. In the early days who taught the EMT classes, and continuing education. It was those who took the iniative to sit down and come up with a little something to help the rest of them around them. It just takes one person to stand up and say ,"Hey , I think I can teach that, or I might have a better way of doing that procedure/practice."  We need to get out of the mind set that only those who are elequent are supposed to be instructors. Everyone has something to offer. You may not be meant to stand in front of crowd , but you can still teach that new guy something.

We need to take back the reigns of our profession and keep pushing it forward into the future. But if we forget where we came from  we are bound to repeat ourselves. So next time you think its a real grind to wash trucks or put on that uniform, realize who has come before to put us where we are today.

"We can learn from history, but we can also deceive ourselves when we selectively take evidence from the past to justify what we have already made up our minds to do." "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." "Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it."

~Author Unknown