Emergency Medical Technicians

One of my childhood best friends is now an EMT and it absolutely infuriates me to hear about how little they are paid and how little thanks they get. EMTs save countless lives every day and make just a little bit more than minimum wage jobs. The purpose of an emergency medical technician is to show up at the scene and keep the patients alive until they can get them to the hospital. The line of work is unimaginably stressful, and the sheer amount of disgusting things they have to both do and witness should warrant so much more praise and esteem than they are currently getting. EMTs are the purest definition of unsung heroes. We always hear about doctors getting all the glory for saving lives in hospitals, but they wouldn't even get the chance to save lives if it weren't for the emergency medical technicians who got the patients there in the first place. One particularly sad part of the job of an EMT is the inevitable instances of not being able to keep a patient alive. They have to watch their patient die after they did everything in their power to keep them alive. They have to look into the eyes of another human being as they cross over to the other side, and the really messed up part is that they sure as shit get the blame when someone dies on them. I think that for someone to be an EMT they need to have near superhuman levels of patience. For all of the dramatic life saving instances, they have several more instances of people making frivolous and unneeded calls over minor medical inconveniences. EMTs don't have a choice, they need to answer those calls and deal with that frustration as well. I could never be an EMT for a couple reasons. First is that I don't believe that I have the capacity to handle that kind of pressure. Sure I work well under pressure when it comes to things such as getting a paper done or other such similar tasks, but I'm very sure that if I were in the situation where the life of another human being were at stake, I would choke under the pressure. That's not simply me putting myself down, it's just me being realistic. Secondly, I don't think I could do that kind of work for the same kind of pay that I got working my last desk job writing articles for online content adds. Just saying that makes me even more irritated at how we as a society repay emergency medical technicians. From learning about someone with first hand EMT experience, I have so much respect for people that go into that line of work. They truly don't get the credit that they deserve.