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‘EMS Professionals Are Not Robots’ — An Interview with an EMT-Turned-Therapist on the Importance of Teaching Mental Health

by  Public Safety Group     Feb 10, 2023
Kelly Lynch

Mental health is increasingly becoming one of the most discussed topics in the emergency medical services industry. EMTs, paramedics and others in the field are exposed to traumatic events often, and are expected to bounce back quickly following each occurrence. Good professionals that they are, they so often do this without complaint. But what is the psychological toll these incidents exact on these professionals, and how can the EMS industry be better when it comes to integrating mental health care into lesson plans and instruction?

Public Safety Group spoke with Kelly Lynch, founder of Turning Point Wellness, a private therapy practice based in Connecticut with a specialty in serving the EMS community, in an effort to answer these questions. Lynch, who was an EMT from 2003 to 2012, switched gears in 2014 to focus on building a practice that places special focus on PTSD injuries and acute stress disorders in EMS professionals.

In our wide-ranging conversation, Lynch discusses the need to address this critical topic through further investment, better resources and culture change inside the departments themselves. Watch the interview here and read below for the questions and answers.

Q: Why is the continued investment in teaching mental health critical for the emergency services industry?

Kelly Lynch: EMS is very much in its infancy still. When we look at the conversation around mental health across all disciplines in public safety personnel, we can look at law enforcement and fire services and realize they had a huge head start on EMS in being able to really understand and start to work with the impact of trauma and traumatic experiences for individuals working in public safety. When we look at EMS professionals, there is so much to learn and so much to understand about how EMS professionals are affected by the things they have to do over the course of their shifts. When you’re on duty—whether you’re paid or a volunteer—you’re not compensated based on what you do over the course of your shift, you’re compensated based on what you might have to do.

We have to take the time to take that into account because of how human beings are impacted by trauma. EMS professionals are not robots, they’re whole entire human beings and we need to treat them as such and not as automatons who can deal with whatever gets thrown into their lap. We have to have this conversation about the impact of trauma.

Q: Do EMS professionals express a need for help with mental health?

KL: There are a lot of EMS professionals that come to me and ask, “Why do I feel the way that I do?” and, “Am I crazy for feeling this?” I think that’s such a reflection on how much stigma there still is that we have to address and confront in these conversations around what mental health is and how we have to address this. Often, [EMS professionals] feel a stigma associated with mental health, they’ll think, “I’m broken,” or “I’m weak,” or, “If I feel this way it means I can’t handle the job,” but that’s just not the case. That’s why we have to have these conversations.

We need to look at the people working in public safety and EMS and let them know they are human beings who will be impacted by the things they see and do, let’s talk about how to manage that in a way that feels healthy.

Q: Is teaching mental health in EMS relatively new? What does it take to actually teach it?

KL: It is so new. As a mental health professional and someone who specializes in working with EMS professionals it is so exciting to me to see these kinds of things starting to happen because it is so badly needed. Being able to come into EMS and an EMS environment and get the type of training that NAEMT (National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians) is offering under the Mental Health Resiliency Officer (MHRO) course is so valuable and so vital because this is a way EMS professionals can go to their colleagues, command staff and managers and say, look, this is a problem, how can we go about fixing it? It's a great program to be able to introduce those conversations and be able to get people the help they deserve to have.

Q: How does the MHRO program work?

KL: NAEMT started the ball rolling by introducing the training program, take it to their departments and it becomes a “train the trainer” where we can take it out to departments and get departments trained so that this is something that gets department wide. The goal is to get the conversation going at a national level through the MHRO program where departments can start to get people better educated on mental health issues and resources, but we can get departments moving on peer support programs, introducing chaplaincy if that’s a resource available in their area, and also educating command staff about mental health and things to look for in their road staff, which is also a big part of the conversation.

Q: Who would make a good MHRO?

KL: When we look at characteristics of personality styles of people who could be really successful in this role, we ask, are you compassionate, are you empathetic, are you a good listener, are you able to sit with the things that typically make people very uncomfortable. As an experienced therapist, I’m used to hearing certain things, but for somebody who isn’t used to hearing certain things related to mental health it can be really startling. Can you sit with that and the discomfort that can be dredged up around certain mental health topics in a way that isn’t going to add insult to injury in those more challenging conversations.  

Q: Can you speak to how the culture in EMS is changing?

KL: This is a major cultural shift. The culture in the last 20 years has so significantly shifted. It’s been a slow shift, but it’s been a big shift. There’s a new generation coming into EMS now who is much more willing to have these conversations around mental health, and who is much more willing to say, I don’t have to spend my career feeling this way or having nightmares about past calls. That was such an accepted thing 20 years ago, that that was just part of the job and you just have to deal with it. The reality is you don’t have to just deal with it. We can treat these things to figure out how to manage them in some cases and how to resolve them completely in other cases.

Q: Do you have any tips for trainers who will be teaching mental health in EMS?

KL: Some of the most important things for trainers to be made aware of is you’re not going to plant a seed that isn’t already there. Take the heavy topic of suicidal thoughts, you’re not going to plant a seed that isn’t already there if you ask them, “Are you thinking about hurting yourself or are you thinking about killing yourself?” It’s important to ask those questions in very clear, very direct language and get straight to the point so we can address an issue. To be able to understand that when you’re teaching these kinds of strategies to other people is very important.

The other piece to this is to understand what is a red flag in somebody who hasn’t been disclosing certain things. I tell command staff to look out for sick time abuse and look out for paid time off abuse, where really somebody is burning through their time in a way that you wouldn’t otherwise expect them to, or they’re burning through their time in a way that you haven’t seen in the past. Typically that means there is either an issue going on at home or we need to start asking questions about some kind of substance abuse. There could be much more than those two particular topics but those end up being the most common things when PTO or sick time abuse starts to happen.

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‘EMS Professionals Are Not Robots’ — An Interview with an EMT-Turned-Therapist on the Importance of Teaching Mental Health

by  Public Safety Group     Feb 10, 2023
Kelly Lynch

Mental health is increasingly becoming one of the most discussed topics in the emergency medical services industry. EMTs, paramedics and others in the field are exposed to traumatic events often, and are expected to bounce back quickly following each occurrence. Good professionals that they are, they so often do this without complaint. But what is the psychological toll these incidents exact on these professionals, and how can the EMS industry be better when it comes to integrating mental health care into lesson plans and instruction?

Public Safety Group spoke with Kelly Lynch, founder of Turning Point Wellness, a private therapy practice based in Connecticut with a specialty in serving the EMS community, in an effort to answer these questions. Lynch, who was an EMT from 2003 to 2012, switched gears in 2014 to focus on building a practice that places special focus on PTSD injuries and acute stress disorders in EMS professionals.

In our wide-ranging conversation, Lynch discusses the need to address this critical topic through further investment, better resources and culture change inside the departments themselves. Watch the interview here and read below for the questions and answers.

Q: Why is the continued investment in teaching mental health critical for the emergency services industry?

Kelly Lynch: EMS is very much in its infancy still. When we look at the conversation around mental health across all disciplines in public safety personnel, we can look at law enforcement and fire services and realize they had a huge head start on EMS in being able to really understand and start to work with the impact of trauma and traumatic experiences for individuals working in public safety. When we look at EMS professionals, there is so much to learn and so much to understand about how EMS professionals are affected by the things they have to do over the course of their shifts. When you’re on duty—whether you’re paid or a volunteer—you’re not compensated based on what you do over the course of your shift, you’re compensated based on what you might have to do.

We have to take the time to take that into account because of how human beings are impacted by trauma. EMS professionals are not robots, they’re whole entire human beings and we need to treat them as such and not as automatons who can deal with whatever gets thrown into their lap. We have to have this conversation about the impact of trauma.

Q: Do EMS professionals express a need for help with mental health?

KL: There are a lot of EMS professionals that come to me and ask, “Why do I feel the way that I do?” and, “Am I crazy for feeling this?” I think that’s such a reflection on how much stigma there still is that we have to address and confront in these conversations around what mental health is and how we have to address this. Often, [EMS professionals] feel a stigma associated with mental health, they’ll think, “I’m broken,” or “I’m weak,” or, “If I feel this way it means I can’t handle the job,” but that’s just not the case. That’s why we have to have these conversations.

We need to look at the people working in public safety and EMS and let them know they are human beings who will be impacted by the things they see and do, let’s talk about how to manage that in a way that feels healthy.

Q: Is teaching mental health in EMS relatively new? What does it take to actually teach it?

KL: It is so new. As a mental health professional and someone who specializes in working with EMS professionals it is so exciting to me to see these kinds of things starting to happen because it is so badly needed. Being able to come into EMS and an EMS environment and get the type of training that NAEMT (National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians) is offering under the Mental Health Resiliency Officer (MHRO) course is so valuable and so vital because this is a way EMS professionals can go to their colleagues, command staff and managers and say, look, this is a problem, how can we go about fixing it? It's a great program to be able to introduce those conversations and be able to get people the help they deserve to have.

Q: How does the MHRO program work?

KL: NAEMT started the ball rolling by introducing the training program, take it to their departments and it becomes a “train the trainer” where we can take it out to departments and get departments trained so that this is something that gets department wide. The goal is to get the conversation going at a national level through the MHRO program where departments can start to get people better educated on mental health issues and resources, but we can get departments moving on peer support programs, introducing chaplaincy if that’s a resource available in their area, and also educating command staff about mental health and things to look for in their road staff, which is also a big part of the conversation.

Q: Who would make a good MHRO?

KL: When we look at characteristics of personality styles of people who could be really successful in this role, we ask, are you compassionate, are you empathetic, are you a good listener, are you able to sit with the things that typically make people very uncomfortable. As an experienced therapist, I’m used to hearing certain things, but for somebody who isn’t used to hearing certain things related to mental health it can be really startling. Can you sit with that and the discomfort that can be dredged up around certain mental health topics in a way that isn’t going to add insult to injury in those more challenging conversations.  

Q: Can you speak to how the culture in EMS is changing?

KL: This is a major cultural shift. The culture in the last 20 years has so significantly shifted. It’s been a slow shift, but it’s been a big shift. There’s a new generation coming into EMS now who is much more willing to have these conversations around mental health, and who is much more willing to say, I don’t have to spend my career feeling this way or having nightmares about past calls. That was such an accepted thing 20 years ago, that that was just part of the job and you just have to deal with it. The reality is you don’t have to just deal with it. We can treat these things to figure out how to manage them in some cases and how to resolve them completely in other cases.

Q: Do you have any tips for trainers who will be teaching mental health in EMS?

KL: Some of the most important things for trainers to be made aware of is you’re not going to plant a seed that isn’t already there. Take the heavy topic of suicidal thoughts, you’re not going to plant a seed that isn’t already there if you ask them, “Are you thinking about hurting yourself or are you thinking about killing yourself?” It’s important to ask those questions in very clear, very direct language and get straight to the point so we can address an issue. To be able to understand that when you’re teaching these kinds of strategies to other people is very important.

The other piece to this is to understand what is a red flag in somebody who hasn’t been disclosing certain things. I tell command staff to look out for sick time abuse and look out for paid time off abuse, where really somebody is burning through their time in a way that you wouldn’t otherwise expect them to, or they’re burning through their time in a way that you haven’t seen in the past. Typically that means there is either an issue going on at home or we need to start asking questions about some kind of substance abuse. There could be much more than those two particular topics but those end up being the most common things when PTO or sick time abuse starts to happen.

Read more:

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