Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Ex-military helo guys that I know seem to gravitate towards EMS rather than chase FW/airlines these days. And many of them have enough FW time from IP tours.
My personal concern with EMS would be survival statistics over your career...that is undeniably a significant family consideration. As long as you are provided with good equipment, a lot of it's up to you. But the nature of EMS is that someone's survival is always at stake so you are tempted to push the envelope with Wx etc. It would be hard to stick to your personal limits day-to-day in that job (at least for me). I'd have to have photos of my kids taped to the panel to remind me...
I was a FW air ambulance pilot. Here was my take on the "if you don't fly, the kid will die" thing. This kid is already dead. Somebody ran over him or his parents didn't protect him for a situation that would kill him. My job is to give him a chance at life IF the flight does not put me or the nurses at undue risk. If I refused a flight it was because I or the crew were likely to face a flight that was NOT Safe, Legal, or Prudent. I didn't kill the kid by refusing the flight, I saved me and the medics from a deadly flight. Yes, there is as push to save the patient, but one must weight the benefit of saving the patient with keeping healthy people alive. I had doctors try to force me into a flight by saying if I didnt I would "kill the patient". WRONG! I kept three people alive because I refused the flight.... and it was the driver or the parents who killed the kid.
It isn't easy to refuse a flight, but it is what one MUST do.
For the record, I often looked for ways to make a Safe and Prudent flight be Legal. I knew the regs and worked them to the limit, but Safety was never an option.
This isn't war. I am not bringing home the body of a fallen comrade. Our patients are people who may die if we cannot bring them to a suitable facility. Work hard to save them, but DO NOT KILL anyone else doing it.
The first order in medicine is
Primum non nocere translated Do No Harm. Killing healthy people is doing harm. Bust your butt to save folks, but first DO NO HARM.