by Ethan Johnson
October 30, 2007

When I was working my last dead-end job before moving to Texas and starting Life 2.0, the company made one of their better decisions. They hired a service to come in and perform personality testing on everyone so we'd all have a better understanding of what sorts of personalities we were surrounded by. We probably knew all of that intuitively, but this was all scientific and stuff. I was labeled an extrovert (clearly, the test was flawed), and the session leader announced, "extroverts are eclectic. They are constantly feeding off of creative energy and adding their input, always creating and re-shaping." (Not an exact quote, but close.) I am passing this anecdote along as preamble to the following, inspired by Beth's recent blog post called Why I'm Not a Doctor.

Like Beth, but differently, I made a stab at taking the medical track during my fairly short but useful college career. Community college, at that. In short, I exiled myself to the working world out of high school rather than waste dubious scholarship money and/or money my parents really didn't have just for me to call myself a college alum. Not graduate - I knew better. Years later, when I was ready to make a run at an Associate's Degree, I worked out where such a degree was headed. I was in my mid-20's, so getting a BS somewhere else was still plausible. I suppose it is always plausible, but I think of college degrees like gymnastics: Best undertaken when young and flexible.

I opted to try the medical track, and signed up for EMT training. It was a one semester and out situation, and a good introduction to the greater world of medical care. The course was taught by paramedics from the local fire station. We learned the usual first aid stuff, how to talk to patients, how to take vitals in the back of a moving ambulance, and so forth. I had an ace in the hole, as far as I was concerned: One of my classmates was a fireman for another town. The EMT thing was new for him too, but he gave me valuable coaching about how to sit for interviews with a municipality and what life with a suburban fire station is like. I puffed up to hear people tell me that I was a shoo-in to advance to Paramedic from EMT.

Toward the end of the course, we had a different instructor. The lead instructor was complemented by two or three other paramedics from the station. He was on duty, so this other instructor brought in a video for show and tell.

[Warning: The following is unsuitable for younger or more sensitive viewers. Fair warning.]

"The video", as the staff called it, was an "after" shot of a guy who tried to commit suicide with a shotgun - and missed.

We sat in silent horror as the film showed views of each side of the man's head. Well, "man" because we were told it was a man. We saw a bald lump of meat with something that looked like a bloody twice-baked potato for a face. (You're welcome. Be thankful I don't have a screen shot to share so we can all take the image to our graves.) We were aghast to learn that this man, this thing, lived. He's deaf, blind, can't talk, and takes meals through a straw. We protested. What manner of life is this, for a man who clearly wanted to die?

We had to see "the video" to understand firmly what we were up against as would-be medical professionals. We couldn't judge. We couldn't play God. We couldn't exercise what we believed to be common sense or acts of mercy. If he can't speak for himself, and no Do Not Resuscitate order is not present, we must assume that he actually wanted to live, and act accordingly. We were told that whoever treated him on the scene managed to intubate him by finding a landmark - the remaining third of his tongue. Breathing was restored, heartbeat recovered, and life went on.

I sat there and saw my options like a flowchart - before I knew diddly about flowcharts. On the one path, I could tear my insignia off of my sleeve, turn away from the scene and quit on the spot, lawsuits and consequences be damned. Or I could take a deep breath, focus on what Must Be Done, and perform. The video showed us what path the responding paramedics chose.

I sat for the state EMT exam, and passed. There was talk of me going to Christ Hospital and putting in for the paramedic program. I was told I would be given a good word by the instructor.

Instead, I went to South Dakota, hoping my Illinois EMT card would be enough to get me established as a phlebotomist for the Red Cross. I didn't get the job. Probably just as well.

I returned to school for another semester, and took Medical Transcription. I loved that class, and had a great instructor. She told us that even if we never really did go the medical route, we'd know our prefixes and suffixes enough to understand if the doctor was being straight with us when giving a diagnosis. I considered becoming a lab tech, then I knew a lab tech who was hopping from one hospital to the next because lab techs were being phased out. I considered Radiology instead, and was told what a cushy job that was going to be, but ultimately I lost my drive to do the medical thing, haunted still by the sight of the worst case scenario. I figure it was a good experience on many levels, and helped give me the necessary confidence to end my self-imposed exile from better paying jobs and take some vital next steps.

I don't regret passing on the medical track. It's interesting, and I respect the dedication of everyone who is connected to it, from the orderlies on up to the administrators. And the experience helped illustrate one of my Dad's life lessons: Nobody really knows what they believe until they're faced with a given situation. People blather about war, abortion and other hot-button issues from the comfort of a recliner, without children in harm's way. People blather about how things "ought to be", specifically for other people. Them. The people who are ruining everything for us. These people didn't have to look at a video of a man with featureless meat for a face and wonder how and if they would set about providing him with responsible, compassionate medical care. I feel fortunate that the other side of a video screen was as close to that decision as I have ever come.

We all have our path to tread, and our respective lot in life. We may not tread long in the paths of others, or the paths others choose for us. But we do well to walk our paths with a quality the world can always use more of: Empathy.

It is with this empathy and through these experiences that we may reflect from the comfort of our recliners that there are others among us who stare down death every day, and make decisions that we cannot bear to imagine. And know that they spend a fair amount of time in therapy in the aftermath of those decisions; decisions we cannot or will not make. <EM>