Not a medical professional, stay in your lane

As an EMT/Medic your training is meant to prepare you to prepare for anything; and I do mean anything. However, there are some circumstances that are not expected; like people I refer to as E.D.K.’s. An E.D.K. is the simitar to an E.D.P. except instead of being an emotional disturbed person; they are an emotionally disturbed Karen.

I am hired by those with money; for more money. This is a great perk and can be a lot of fun but it does have it’s moments. I love 99.99% of the people I come across and I adore all of my patients; but then there’s those moments..

Great Patient but there’s an EDK not staying in their lane

Patient is having a severe panic attack; ok we all get them.

“MEDIC!!!” They scream. I am sitting in a room with their music blasting loud enough to make us all go deaf. I can’t hear myself think. I am sitting right in front of everyone but they forget I am sitting there; I receive a text message that someone is in need. I run with my bag and ready for action. I slide into a room with my patient and start vitals immediately.

HR jumping form 75 to 59 before I could blink.

BP: 110/73

RR: shallow, rapid 18 bpm

Glucose: 70

Initially I am trying to get the patient to calm down but their co-workers keep lingering by and each time I get them to calm down; the coworker being near them makes their HR drop to 59 and move lower. The patient had been getting under 3 hours of sleep every night for months. There are a lot of things the body will compensate for; sleep is not one of them. As my equipment is being set off by their dropping HR the patient panics more.

”Am I going to die?” Asks the patient

The question that no EMT professionally can not and should never answer. I know it sounds cruel but the truth is; it could very easily be a messed up promise if a patient is told that. So I tell her to focus on her breathing so I can get her to relax again.

HR: 78 and steady

Once again, another co-worker enters the room “How are you feeling?”

HR: 59 and bounding

The trouble with working as a hired gun is lack of privacy at times; even when they mean the best for my patient. The people who hire me forget I am a medical professional entering their playing field and I need privacy; and because of this forgotten concept if someone can they feel they have the right ot barge in. They forget my license is on the line and I will throw anyone out to protect my patient.

“I need you to please leave.”

HR: 60 bounding, hard “Am I going to die, cause I feel like I’m going to die?” Such an unfair question and fair question at the same time.

They pause at the door as if they are contemplating if they should listen; then they walk out slowly.

I can’t lock the doors. The door has no lock. I need to focus on the patient. A panic attack won’t cause a heart attack. Heart attacks come from a blockage in one or more of the blood vessels to the heart, which leads to an interruption of vital blood flow. Now, a panic attack won’t cause a heart attack, but stress and anxiety may play a role in the development of coronary artery disease. My goal is to get the patient to calm down. Individuals who suffer from panic disorder, or panic attacks, may be at much higher risk of heart attack and heart disease later in life; and I am not going to change this is the one.

No knock, someone simply barges in asking about work; which really pissed me off because if they were dying you’re essentially saying “I don’t care if you’re dying, I care about this work” American Dreams right?

I am watching her calm steady HR of 75-80 jump to 50-59 bounding. I decide that they needs to leave premise. The patient is questioning how to tell their significant other they are going to die and how fast they can arrive. I would probably feel like I am about to die too; if my c—workers and boss kept trying to make me into a spectacle and asking about work; since esentially the job is literally killing me. I digress.

HR: 79 beginning to get steady…

RR: 12 bpm

I make the call that I’m sure FDNY was not confused about but them being at work was going to become a hazard at work; they already fainted and luckily didn’t hit their head on the way down. Nothing broken just the anxiety of work. Literally working themselves to death; my heart extends to them because I know that feeeling. I tell them to call them in so they can do an EKG. They are not dying but having them at the job site was a risk. I don’t need more patients because I let one stay.

Ambulance arrives and they took my patient and closed the door. I am stationed to my site and have to return to the other potentials. Eventually they do a reading on their heart and I find out through the grapevine they suggested the patient goes to the ER to get their heart thoroughly checked out; because it doesn’t look right.

The patient is driven to urgent care by another staff member because they were too afraid of a hospital bill; America am I right?

The person who drove them would see me the following day. We end up in small conversation and they decide to give me their unlicensed medical criticism. Let me explain this person’s job and this is in no way to insult their job, but they took the first hit; their job is to be a covid hall monitor. I love that. I think that is great! However, it does not require a medical license. So before you go cricitzing me, perhaps consider staying in your lane. At my selected station for the day I have to think about everyone at the location including the patient and potential patients. I’m watching potential hazards and spend much of my time trying to prevent things. Finding out medical history through out the day or week; like when someone surprises me by asking for aspirin and only to find out during questioning them…they are allergic to aspirin -_-

“When I arrived at the Urgent Care, I saw the vitals on the screen and I would have never called an ambulance; they were fine” says the mouth breather

In my head I’m thinking they were not fine and becoming a hazard to others because of what they took care of at the location. I don’t need someone handling something, having a panic attack or fainting again, and they hadn’t slept properly in the last 6 months. The body will turn against you easily if it doesn’t get enough sleep. I had my reasons for sending them out. Being at the job site was giving them chest pains, panic, anxiety, stress, rapid shallow breathing; I removed them from the site. Honestly, the person seemed more upset that someone had the opportunity to go home and they did not. The conversation is stretched as I see a group of other health care professionals (who later said you made a good call) and I think to myself “Oh there’s my people, let me go over there!”

The Double Lane Talker tries to stand in my way and I look up at them; professionally. They decide to ask me questions about what the vitals and diagnosis I had before I sent them. Here’s something to know about EMT’s our job is not to diagnosis you; we are to stablize and ship you out if needed. Also, HIPPA!

Me: ”I can not answer those questions.”

Double Lane Talker: “Why not? I do covid testing.”

Me: “HIPPA”

Double Lane Talker: “We’re practically the same thing”

You did not just insult what I have worked for!

That’s not what I said but I was about to until my paycheck came out as a cartoon animation dancing in front of me shaking it’s finger at me saying “no”.

Me: “All medical professionals are bound by law to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. I can not discuss a patient with anyone.….” I’m still feeling saucy so I ask “do you have a medical license?”

Double Lane Talker: “No, but I’m a…”

Me: “Ah, well with health care professionals we are bound by law to protect a patient’s privacy. This means I can not answer your questions specifically about Patient Doe and give you their personal health information; unless I am passing them off to you for additional medical attention.”

They catch my drift and become annoyed; but defeated. Now before someone says “You’re typing this out online!” I could have made all of this up for a fun time. All jokes aside, these are simply learning curves for anyone enjoying the story. Patient is not identified not by age, gender, name; nothing. There’s nothing more important to me than my patient’s; even the annoying ones.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) lays out three rules for protecting patient health information, namely:

1) The Privacy Rule.

2) The Security Rule.

3) The Breach Notification Rule.

The HIPAA Privacy Rule establishes national standards to protect individuals' medical records and other individually identifiable health information (collectively defined as “protected health information”) and applies to health plans, health care clearinghouses, and those health care providers that conduct certain health care transactions electronically. The Rule requires appropriate safeguards to protect the privacy of protected health information and sets limits and conditions on the uses and disclosures that may be made of such information without an individual’s authorization. The Rule also gives individuals rights over their protected health information, including rights to examine and obtain a copy of their health records, to direct a covered entity to transmit to a third party an electronic copy of their protected health information in an electronic health record, and to request corrections.

The privacy rule is the one Double Lane Run Their Mouther wanted me to violate in order to justify their Karen moment of questioning me. They have the patient’s full name, can identify the patient by what they overheard and are now questioning me as if they have authority; hmmm.

The HIPAA Security Rule establishes national standards to protect individuals’ electronic personal health information that is created, received, used, or maintained by a covered entity. The Security Rule requires appropriate administrative, physical and technical safeguards to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and security of electronic protected health information.

The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule, 45 CFR §§ 164.400-414, requires HIPAA covered entities and their business associates to provide notification following a breach of unsecured protected health information. Similar breach notification provisions implemented and enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), apply to vendors of personal health records and their third party service providers, pursuant to section 13407 of the HITECH Act.

This EDK proceeds to give me a bunch of information about the patient because the patient trusted them to be in the room. They seemed to have thought by sharing the patient’s personal information that I would return the favor. When they saw how serious my face was they attempted to ask “Am I breaking the HIPPA Law, oh God I hope not”. The conversation ended with me telling them “Don’t worry you don’t have a medical license, you’ll be fine haha” -_-

For some reason, they no longer had an urge to chitchat with me; and then I was free to mingle amongst my people (the other health care workers and health care students) from an ER nurse, nursing student and undeclared medical career “omg what career do I pick” student. They all heard the conversation but they had also heard everything about the patient’s condition; from the Double Laned Mouth Breather.

Morals of this story:

If your job is killing you slowly; look into other opportunities and employment. No amount of money can mean that much if you’re too stressed or dead to enjoy it.

If you are not lawyer; don’t say you can practice law.

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**Any resemblance to real persons or other real-life entities is purely coincidental. All characters and other entities appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, dead or alive, or other real-life entities, past or present, is purely coincidental.** and yes some things were changed to tell the story.