Prior to about 1973, in order to “attend” to patients in the back of an ambulance all you had to have was an American Red Cross First Aid Card, which amounted to, depending on the year it was taken, about an 8 hour course. That’s when I began volunteering with the Flushing Community Volunteer Ambulance Corps., in Queens, New York. We worked out of converted Cadillac hearses.
In fact, the vast majority of emergency care and transportation services on the East Coast at that time were handled by funeral homes who had one of their hearses equipped with a stretcher, a box of bandages, an oxygen bottle and a backboard and were staffed by young men whose primary qualifications were that they could deal with funeral home business, had a driver’s license, would drive fast, and didn’t puke at the sight of blood. The job of the ambulance crew was simple; “Load and Go!”
I was privileged to have been an integral part of the transition of emergency services from the scenario I outlined into a highly complex system. Within the course of a few years the “victim” was now called the “patient,” the ambulance would (mostly) not be moved from the scene of accident, illness or injury until he or she was stable, and the young men were doing highly technical medical things (as certified Paramedics) in the field that most doctors didn’t know how to do in a hospital.
Prior to becoming a paramedic, as a basic EMT I had a bag of tricks that ran out in a matter of minutes (or worse!). All I had to work with was my head, hands and heart. I would then experience myself as just a human being in the back of an ambulance with another human being and we were facing the limits of our own humanity together. It was there that I got my first glimpse of what it means to be a healer.
And then, seemingly overnight, I found myself in possession of a highly sophisticated arsenal of tools and support that turned me away from just being a guy in the back of an ambulance into what I learned to define as a Flesh Mechanic.
It was years before I realized that is what I had become. Like most of my peers - not only in emergency services but in every branch of healing - I had begun wanting to be a healer but had found, just by sheer volume of exposure to debility and death and the complexity of the medical system, it was easy, if not seemingly essential, to hide.
And that realization, in the form of a question, became the theme of the next approximate 30 years of my exploration of the healing arts: How does one maintain one’s humanity while being groomed and reinforced to be a technically proficient machine?
There are so many things that we are not taught, that are neglected, or that are overwhelmed by the massive volume of technical information we must absorb and use. Our consciousness, at first ruled by our hearts (”I’ve got to help”), shifts to our heads (”First do A, then do B, then”). Before long, whatever progress we are making in pursuit of our powers (and satisfactions) as healers takes a back seat to “keeping up” with the work.
The end result is building a series of increasingly thicker shells to insulate ourselves from the person in our care; to distance ourselves from experiencing the others’ pain so we can be the professionals we’re asked to be. In the process, we end up hardening ourselves to not only the work, but life.
While seeking to articulate my experience as a medic (in a movie, Healer - opening night film of the 1994 Santa Barbara International Film Festival - and book, A Paramedic’s Journey: 18 Things Healers Learn), I came to recognize that even within the context of an extremely “grounded” profession such as emergency medicine, I was called upon to deal with principles of an “esoteric” nature that spoke more of the orientation of the healer toward life than anything else.
The more I’d fight these principles, the more painful it was to do my work. As time went on, I learned about other healers and how they carried themselves in their work. I began to identify certain commonalities in their experiences. I checked them against my own experiences, and then worked with the principles in other areas of my healing work. What I discovered was, rather than seeking to distance themselves from the experiences of which they are a part, healers through all ages have sought connection.
Trial and error gave me a picture of what it means to be a healer in the back of an ambulance. Continued exploration, and a broadening of my search resulted in coming to better understand that we are all healers - in the moments we choose to be.
The 18 articles that will follow are adapted from my book, A Paramedic’s Journey: 18 Things Healers Learn. As in the book, they are not listed in hierarchal or linear order. I offer them for you to integrate into your life and practice, for the good of all.
Russ Reina shares over 35 years of experience in the healing arts through his web site http://mauihealingartist.com It is a potent resource for those wishing to deepen their abilities in connection and develop their powers as healers. For a powerful free tool to explore your inner world, please check out his adjunct site http://thestoryofthis.net
(Permission is granted to reprint this article, unedited, provided proper attribution is made and the signature line — this resource box — is kept intact)