"Medicine serves all of Humanity. Variation fuels Evolution. Outliers are often heroes.”

A Profession of Outliers

I enjoy solving problems and facing challenges, and I especially love underdog stories. In every class, there are “diamonds in the rough”— students with the drive and natural talent to save lives, without the know-how to put it into play. Medical education equips students with the ability help others, and my responsibility as EMS Instructor is to provide the catalyst that facilitates students’ transformation from potential to professional lifesavers. Essentially, my duty is to find the level of a student’s knowledge, then explain the information in a relatable language, to get them up to speed with the curriculum. Interestingly enough, many students have dealt with medical and traumatic emergencies, and can draw upon their experience, they just haven’t connected the dots between their own experience and the curriculum. This is why kids from troubled backgrounds and chaotic pasts make quality caregivers

There’s a genuine need for people with traumatic pasts. They have power when treating patients who share the same painful history. When students realize this, it changes them forever. Whether it be firefighting, nursing, prehospital care or working for a neighborhood outreach program, the transformation from victim to victor creates an unstoppable human.

The more outlying the individual—the wilder or harder their upbringing—the more understanding they possess for their patients. Outliers are the memorable ones who show others how it’s done, and inspire other outliers in the fringe communities to rise above their environmental drawbacks and succeed despite challenges.

The Paramedic’s Paradox

I’ve sought out the hard-luck neighborhoods my entire career. Whether as a paramedic, a firefighter, or educator, I’ve served the under-served, and have always been willing to risk my life to save theirs.

Consider this paradox: There are few things that I abhor win life; suffering, unnecessary pain, and tragedy are the Big Three. I hate those conditions to the point that I immersed myself in places where they are in abundance, in order to perfect my ability to alleviate them. This is at the paramedic’s paradox, we are so afraid, or hate pain, suffering and death to the extent that we dedicate our lives in pursuit of them so that we can practice their mitigation.

In the past, surgeons went to war, sharpening their skills by treating the injured. In the First World, the under-belly of a large city suffices. Within the maw of the inner-city, there will be ample opportunities to treat the stabbed, shot, assaulted, neglected, abused, incarcerated, overdosed, under-nourished or just plain unlucky who live in those neighborhoods; and we know this with such certainty that we detail the newbies to those stations to acclimate them at the start of their careers.

If anyone wants to help me in this endeavor, no matter their color, gender, or creed—I need all the help I can get. We’re not here as lifesavers for our own uniqueness, our own aggrandizement; we’re here because we have a knack or unique perspective that helps us save others. So, grab a bandage and let’s get to work. I’ll end this portion with a quote from Cormac McCathy’s novel, All The Pretty Horses*:

He stood, hat-in-hand, over the unmarked earth.  This woman who had worked for his family fifteen years… and he called her his Abuela. He said ‘goodbye’ to her in Spanish, and then turned and put on his hat, and turned his wet face to the wind, and for a moment he held out his hands as if to steady himself, or as if to bless the ground there, or perhaps as if to slow the world that was rushing away, and seemed to care nothing for the old, or young, or rich poor, or dark, or pale, or he, or she. Nothing for their struggles, nothing for their names.  Nothing for the living or for the dead.

*McCarthy, Cormac. All the Pretty Horses,Alfred A. Knopf, 1992, pp 299-300