Without a doubt, one of the most under-appreciated groups of healthcare workers in our country are emergency medical technicians. These are the dedicated men and women who respond to illness and injury outside of the hospital setting. There are several levels of EMT — including emergency medical responder, EMT basic, advanced EMT and paramedic — and the levels correspond to increasing levels of education and skill.
While much of our national healthcare focus is always on nurses and physicians, it is the first responder who comes to the house where a loved one experiences a cardiac arrest and starts CPR. It is the EMT who treats the patient at the overturned car and extricates them from it so that they can be taken to the hospital. It is the flight paramedic who keeps them alive from the scene of the house fire to the burn center. These individuals put themselves at physical risk and work with limited resources to save life and limb.
The pandemic has highlighted their importance, as they have been in constant motion to the homes of the sick, or transferring the grievously ill from hospitals with fewer resources to hospitals with more. In many cases, due to the shocking shortage of hospital beds, EMTs have been taking patients across several states to find available beds.
Communities and churches should take every opportunity to show appreciation to EMTs. Furthermore, the work they do is truly a mission field. They should be constantly in our prayers. Not only is their work physically hazardous, it is emotionally and spiritually so — as constant exposure to death and disaster takes a toll.
As a mission field, it should attract believers who feel a call to this work. They will do great good by bringing the love of God to the sick and dying, and to co-workers, in a setting that brings new challenges every day. It always seems noble for us to send young people into full-time ministry. But maybe we need to send some to be medics as well. For the work of the Church happens in the back of the ambulance as surely as it does in the pulpit.