The Trouble With Great Expectations
Being a paramedic is not necessarily the job that many of us expect it to be once we get past initial training and into the role itself.
For some, it becomes a career with aspirations to progress into specific roles, for the challenges they bring and personal rewards that may be gained. For others, it may be disappointing that it's not always the exciting, high drama, constant lights and sirens rush that we thought it would be.
A large majority may find that it evolves into a vocation, passion and calling to make a little difference to a large number of people, with immense satisfaction over a working lifetime. In many, it may be just a good job. One that provides the type of lifestyle, salary and day to day reliability we're looking for, but we can take it or leave it overall.
Whatever the drivers behind becoming a paramedic are, whatever the reasons we remain in that role may be, and whatever the goals for our futures become, like any profession, we're a diverse bunch. Those drivers, reasons and goals are quite possibly the things that help us to connect, but also keep us accountable within such a large group.
In conversation amongst students, frontline medics, managers, support staff and senior leadership, it can be easy to fall into the trap of expecting our own, individual values, to be the same as others. With this trap, unfortunately, comes ultimate disappointment. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday soon, we'll find ourselves disappointed if we expect our personal moral compasses to be matched by everyone around us.
Whenever I have tripped and fallen into that little black hole of disappointment, I've had to drag my miserable self out by reassessing my expectations. Through reading books, articles and research, speaking to colleagues, friends and family, or listening to podcasts and motivational talks, it's the same answer every time.
It always comes back to my individual assumptions, and what I have expected. When in actual fact, I have no right to create preordained expectations of any individual, group, or organisation, unless specific guidelines, mission statements or commitments have been offered in writing.
Writing a book entitled The Good, The Bad & The Ugly Paramedic was the first challenge that I have undertaken with absolutely no expectations of either the outcome, myself, or others. The feedback, therefore, has been interesting, surprising, refreshing and exciting. It has also been the most satisfying challenge, simply because I had nothing to aim for, other than to create a text that I was happy to publish, because of something that I am passionate about. I can't believe it took me this long to learn such a simple lesson in life!
With this in mind, rather than aiming to instruct readers on how to do their job, based on my own expectations of paramedics, or that of an industry majority, the goal was to suggest ways of personally reflecting on what we do in paramedicine, from the outside in. Dropping our individual expectations of others, therefore, is the whole premise of the book, with a focus instead on our own expectations of where we fit on the good to bad to ugly scale. It's up to each reader to reflect on individual performance through questioning their current points of view.
Are we consistently happy with our own clinical practice?
Does our behaviour in public meet our personal expectations of what we hope to see from other emergency services personnel?
Do we utilise safety precautions to the same level we'd hope our loved ones will in their daily work?
Does our leadership performance match the expectations we personally used to have, of others in those positions before us?
Overall, do we deliver to our patients, the level of care and compassion that we hope other paramedics will deliver to our family members?
This blog aims for the same focus. To raise the questions, put some examples out there, and see what we can come up with on reflection, all by ourselves in the privacy of our own minds, with no expectations of others whatsoever.
Thanks for reading, feel free to subscribe, your details will never be shared with anyone else and, if you're passionate enough about any post to want to comment, please do. It would be great to hear from you.
(First published at GBU Paramedic Blogger site on 11th December 2019)