I’m not the best paramedic in the world, in the room, or even reading this page; and guess what, that’s okay. As new (and even old) paramedics, we are in a job where we regularly deal with situations we are unfamiliar with, or have to rapidly adapt our care plans for. Unlike other healthcare jobs, which take place in stable and ordered clinical settings, paramedics work in utter chaos most days. Guess what; if you are in this environment, you will have bad days. You will make mistakes. You will fail. That is okay, as long as you fail forward.
What separates you from the 5, 10, or 30 year medic isn’t some magical innate ability to excel; it’s experience. Experience comes from failure. Most of the time a medic, or any other professional, learns how to do something well by first learning what not to do. The experienced paramedics don’t know how to avoid pitfalls because they are precognitive; they know because they have fallen into those traps a hundred times before. Most will tell you, it takes 2 years to feel competent, and 5 years to actually be competent.
So what does that mean for us (yeah, I’m new too, and I’m falling forward)? Well it means that when you make mistakes, or you feel that your calls could have gone better, you take the experience and use it to improve the next time. For the first 5 or so years, most calls will be ones you haven’t done before. You will be nervous the first time you do anything new. You will screw it up. The important thing is that you learn, grow, and do better on the next one. You only get better with time and experience.
Don’t focus on perfection; focus on improving over the long term. Remember that learning is a lifelong pursuit. Fail forward.
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