Work in the ER

When I tell strangers that I work in the ER, there is this odd sense of awe and pseudo-respect. Usually this is followed by these most common responses: "Do you like your job? That must be crazy! I'm not sure if I could handle all the gunshots and stabbings that you see."

I don't have the heart to tell them I haven't seen a legitimately critical gunshot or stab wound at my hospital in over 2 years. I hear a lot of people tell me "I think it's cool you know how to save a life. I bet you do that every day" (That's the one thing I get to help do at least once a month, if I'm lucky) I guess I know how. But usually, it's not me doing the saving. With my moderate amount of skills and responsibility, my main job is to just follow orders like a good little tool. Place the IV, put in a foley, come get me if the patient is dying. It's a team effort to save a life. Everyone has their part.

I somewhat wish I had the balls to say, "I do save lives every day, with these healing hands." I would then clap my hands and then flicker my fingers about, as if to imply magical healing sparkles emanated from them that enable me to instantly heal any medical problem. I would probably get a lot of weird looks, but it would be worth it.

My patients almost always don't need our help. Coming in for colds, stubbed toes, headaches, hang nails, and a bed to just sleep in. Most of the time, I feel like I'm a bell boy at a hotel full of people who are somehow incapable of getting off their ass or pity wagon to take care of themselves. I'm not insensitive...........Or perhaps [probably] I am. Some days it's worth it, some days I wish I would have chosen a career where my only job was to eat food, become socially acceptably obese, play video games, and some how command the respect of a job force. (I would also consider other careers such as a pirate, a communist, a writer, a pet store janitor, a mechanic, a hippy, a musician, an entitled journalist who firmly believes their opinions matter and change lives.)