ysabetwordsmith (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ysabetwordsmith) wrote2021-10-02 08:55 pm
ysabetwordsmith) wrote2021-10-02 08:55 pm
Poem: "The Responsibility to Care"
This poem is spillover from the February 2, 2021 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from mama_kestrel. It also fills the "Poppy (yellow) - Wealth" square in my 2-1-21 "The Language of Flowers" card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles. It belongs to the Mercedes and Finn Family threads of Polychrome Heroics.
"The Responsibility to Care"
[Monday, July 6, 2015]
Molly was working on paperwork
for their new zoomcrew intern
when she heard the door jingle.
"Wow, what a dump," someone said.
"Hey, we like it here," Dave said,
hurt ringing in his tone. "This place
has done a lot of good work."
Molly put down the pages and
went to see what was going on.
Sure enough, there was
their new intern, fresh-faced
and pudgy in a shirt that read,
Paramedic Student on the front
over a pair of upscale pants.
"Hi, I'm Molly Finn," she said.
"Welcome to Soup to Nuts."
"Jefferson Ream, I'm here
for the internship," he said,
then noticed her expression.
"Oh. You, uh ... heard that?"
"I did," Molly said evenly.
"If you don't feel like this
is a good fit, you could go
somewhere else," Dave said.
"I got this," Molly said. "It's
a very familiar problem to me."
"Okay." Dave spread his hands
and sat down, leaving it to her.
"Jefferson, what do you dislike
about our place?" Molly asked.
"It's kind of shabby," he said,
looking around. "I mean, it's not
filthy, but none of the fixtures are new,
the art's mostly self-care posters, and
all the furniture looks like it came out of
a box. I picked this place because it had
the best reputation. Guess I expected more."
"It looks like this because, one, we spend
money on vital equipment, not fripperies,"
Molly said. "Two, if we decorated it too far
above our clients' budget level, it would
make people feel uncomfortable."
"But people like nice things,"
Jefferson said, bewildered.
"Some people do, but others
feel out of place," Molly said.
"Let me guess, which one
of your parents is a doctor?"
"Well, both," said Jefferson.
"My mom's a gynecologist and
my dad specializes in men's health."
"Mine too," said Molly. "Mum is
a cardiologist and Da's a psychiatrist."
"Then why do you work here?"
Jefferson said, staring at her.
"Because this is where I can
do the most good," Molly replied.
"There is no higher honor than to be
given the responsibility to care
for another human being."
"Okay, I get that," he said. "I
want to be a field doctor, so I'm
starting with paramedic training
before I go to college and then
medical school. My mentor said
this was a good place to learn
how to handle really weird stuff."
"That's true, and both my parents
are used to it," Molly said. "Thing is,
neither of them grew up rich, so that
makes it easier for them to relate to
working-class clients. They made sure
us kids learned that too, growing up. It
sounds like you need to work on that."
"Why?" Jefferson said. "I'm not poor."
"You aren't, but some of your clients
will be," Molly said. "If you can't build
rapport fast in an emergency, then
they won't trust you or tell you things."
"Oh," Jefferson said, looking glum.
"That's not good ... could be dangerous."
"Now you're getting it," Molly said,
wafting a little approval his way.
She didn't want him to wilt,
just pay attention to more
than surface appearances.
Jefferson touched the coffee cup
that read We Are the Champions.
Its handle had broken clean off,
and now it held pens and pencils.
"If the shabby chic decor has
a purpose, then what's this one
all about?" he asked Molly.
"It reminds people that it's
okay not to be okay," she said.
"Things that are a little broken
can still be useful in some way."
"Yeah, okay," Jefferson said.
"I guess that there's more to
this place than meets the eye."
"We like to think so," Dave said.
"Stick around and you'll see more."
"I'll try," Jefferson said. "I'm just
not sure how much use this will
really be in the field, I mean
beyond getting people to talk."
"Rescue work isn't like working in
a hospital where you always have
plenty of supplies," Molly warned.
"You need to know how to improvise
if you run out, or the first thing you try
doesn't work. That's hard to do if you're
used to buying exactly what you need."
Jefferson frowned. "I don't know if --
can you give me an example?"
"Okay, let me tell you about
our last mass-casualty incident,"
Molly said. "Last December there
was a twelve-car pileup in the fog."
"I saw pictures of it on the news,"
Jefferson said. "It looked awful."
"It was awful," Molly said. "We got
there within four minutes of the call.
There were three of us -- only one
a speedster -- and thirty-one victims
because people were carpooling."
"What did you do?" Jefferson said.
"Bethan did the triage at speed, then
we all focused on the worst injuries,"
Molly said. "One victim was a nurse,
who had a broken arm -- badly broken,
in three places -- that she just told us
to strap up so she could help with
her good hand, so that's what we did."
"Another family were Activity Scouts,
so they took over the traffic control,
which helped a lot," Dave said.
"That sounds pretty rough,"
Jefferson said, his eyes wide.
"It was six and a half minutes after
we arrived before the next ambulance
could reach the scene," Dave added.
"Police and fire arrived just after them."
"We lost one patient because we just
didn't have enough hands to cover
all of the critical injuries," Molly said.
"Then we lost another one because
we were running out of supplies. By
the time the second crew arrived, we
were making bandages from T-shirts
and tourniquets from bootlaces."
"Did that work?" Jefferson said,
staring at her with wide eyes.
"Yes," Molly said. "There was
broken glass and bent metal
everywhere, so a lot of people
had heavy bleeding. That's one
of the most lethal things that can
readily be fixed with first aid, and
we saved several lives that way."
"So that's why you need to know
how to use whatever's on hand,
not just the best thing for the job,"
Dave said. "It really matters."
"Do you have any advice?"
Jefferson said, giving
Dave a hopeful look.
"Don't be a toolbag,"
Dave said. "Your head
and your heart will be
your most important tools."
"Don't make one problem worse
while trying to fix another one,"
Molly said. "We see that a lot, when
medics fixate on an obvious injury
but fail to care for the person."
"Feeling helpless is actually
the leading cause of PTSD, and
that can kill someone just as dead
as bleeding out can," Dave said.
"It just takes a while longer."
Jefferson winced. "Yeah,
that's not good. We heard
about that in class. I want
to carry a burner phone
loaded with CarGo and
coping apps to give away."
"That's a great idea," Molly said.
"Dave, jot that down, we could
do that here too. We've been
loaning people a tablet so they can
start putting away bad memories, but
a burner phone they could keep."
"Got it," Dave said, making
a note on his smartphone.
"So how do I --" Jefferson
waved a hand at the room.
"-- learn to do what you do?"
"Poorskills," Molly said. "I'll
take you to the community center
and see what classes they have.
Take one on budgeting and
one on home repairs to start.
Try to make some friends."
"Set yourself a budget as
tight as you can make it,"
Dave said. "We'll help you
figure out how to live on that,
and it'll give you experience."
"You really think that will help
me get along better with people
who have less?" Jefferson said.
"Just remember to focus on
the responsibility to care,"
Molly said. "You'll do fine."
"Okay," Jefferson said. "Let's
check the community center
so I can get started on classes."
His mood had shifted from
disdain to determination.
Yes, he really would do fine.
* * *
Notes:
Jefferson Ream -- He has pinkish-fair skin, brown eyes, and brown hair buzzed short. He is chunky and still trying to work off the fat so he can handle the physical challenges of rescue work. His heritage is American. He is 18 years old in 2015.
Jefferson has an iron stomach and can eat anything, ride the wildest roller-coasters, and never gets queasy at the sight of blood. He goes hunting with his uncles and helps butcher the game. Jefferson wants to become a field doctor and is working his way up through paramedic training before college and later medical school. He took online classes and weekend workshops during his last semester of high school, then finished up his practicals in early summer. The plan is to start the internship with support work in the office, take the tests, and then join the ambulance for few weeks as an assistant paramedic before starting premed in college that fall.
A diligent student, Jefferson easily grasps the information, but he struggles to understand the limitations of field practice. His parents, both doctors, make enough money that he could always buy whatever he wanted, so he has no experienced with jerryrigging or any other poorskills. That makes for a very awkward fit in his summer internship with the Soup to Nuts zoomwagon crew. Molly and Dave have offered to help Jefferson learn poorskills to make it easier for him to get along with folks from different socioeconomic levels.
Qualities: Good (+2) Diligent, Good (+2) Iron Stomach, Good (+2) Logical-Mathematical Intelligence, Good (+2) Popular Crowd, Good (+2) Student
Poor (-2) Spoiled Rich Kid
* * *
"There is no higher honor than to be given the responsibility to care for another human being."
-- Richard K. Schachern
"Don't be a toolbag" <- a quote we tell all the FNGs :rofl:
Shabby-chic is a style of things that look quaintly worn. There are ways to create a shabby-chic paint job on furniture. Upcycling offers many ways to refurbish and reuse old things in new ways, like turning a broken cup into a pencil holder (which I also do).
A socioeconomic gap between clients and caregivers can undermine trust, quality of care, and outcomes. People who actually care about client health may take steps to compensate for this. Most don't bother.
Local-America has the phrase "It's okay not to be okay," but this is more often bait-and-switch than honest. That is, if you reveal any weakness or fail to meet demands, the chance of other people becoming angry, avoiding you, or penalizing you will greatly exceed the chance of them actually helping you. That often makes it logical and even necessary to conceal weaknesses, because the cost of doing so is routinely less that getting caught in a moment of vulnerability by predatory bystanders. Terramagne-America does better in accepting that people have problems and helping each other through the hard times. Specifically, health care providers often hire people with disabilities to show, not just tell, clients that life goes on. Both Mrs. Wu (who is blind) and a broken cup repurposed as a pencil holder subtly send similar messages at Soup to Nuts. Know what to do when everything is awful and it's not okay. These are much more productive instructions than L-America's insistence that everyone perform normally no matter how wrecked they are.
Fog season in California often causes multicar pileups.
The PACE planning method includes multiple options. Survival skills include improvising medical supplies from everyday items. It was actually the availability of a speedster that enabled expending a zoomwagon's entire supply of bandages and tourniquets within minutes, necessitating other items to serve those needs.
Traumatic stress is primarily caused by feeling helpless, and people who don't feel helpless are better able to cope with hardships. Trauma-informed care takes action to restore a sense of safety and control as soon as possible, to minimize the risk of further harm. T-America does this fairly well. L-America often does the exact opposite, increasing rather than reducing harm. Such experiences encourage people to avoid and resist "help" that is not actually helpful.
Preventing PTSD is important, but caregivers are just beginning to identify things that help. First, understand that PTSD is fundamentally a sorting error: the brain can't file traumatic memories properly, so they replay over and over again. Playing a stacking-and-sorting game such as Tetris can activate the brain's sorting function. Making a care diary, timeline, or trauma scrapbook can help place memories in context as part of the life story. Handing out a burner phone preloaded with these materials is a brilliant plan.
mama_kestrel. It also fills the "Poppy (yellow) - Wealth" square in my 2-1-21 "The Language of Flowers" card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles. It belongs to the Mercedes and Finn Family threads of Polychrome Heroics."The Responsibility to Care"
[Monday, July 6, 2015]
Molly was working on paperwork
for their new zoomcrew intern
when she heard the door jingle.
"Wow, what a dump," someone said.
"Hey, we like it here," Dave said,
hurt ringing in his tone. "This place
has done a lot of good work."
Molly put down the pages and
went to see what was going on.
Sure enough, there was
their new intern, fresh-faced
and pudgy in a shirt that read,
Paramedic Student on the front
over a pair of upscale pants.
"Hi, I'm Molly Finn," she said.
"Welcome to Soup to Nuts."
"Jefferson Ream, I'm here
for the internship," he said,
then noticed her expression.
"Oh. You, uh ... heard that?"
"I did," Molly said evenly.
"If you don't feel like this
is a good fit, you could go
somewhere else," Dave said.
"I got this," Molly said. "It's
a very familiar problem to me."
"Okay." Dave spread his hands
and sat down, leaving it to her.
"Jefferson, what do you dislike
about our place?" Molly asked.
"It's kind of shabby," he said,
looking around. "I mean, it's not
filthy, but none of the fixtures are new,
the art's mostly self-care posters, and
all the furniture looks like it came out of
a box. I picked this place because it had
the best reputation. Guess I expected more."
"It looks like this because, one, we spend
money on vital equipment, not fripperies,"
Molly said. "Two, if we decorated it too far
above our clients' budget level, it would
make people feel uncomfortable."
"But people like nice things,"
Jefferson said, bewildered.
"Some people do, but others
feel out of place," Molly said.
"Let me guess, which one
of your parents is a doctor?"
"Well, both," said Jefferson.
"My mom's a gynecologist and
my dad specializes in men's health."
"Mine too," said Molly. "Mum is
a cardiologist and Da's a psychiatrist."
"Then why do you work here?"
Jefferson said, staring at her.
"Because this is where I can
do the most good," Molly replied.
"There is no higher honor than to be
given the responsibility to care
for another human being."
"Okay, I get that," he said. "I
want to be a field doctor, so I'm
starting with paramedic training
before I go to college and then
medical school. My mentor said
this was a good place to learn
how to handle really weird stuff."
"That's true, and both my parents
are used to it," Molly said. "Thing is,
neither of them grew up rich, so that
makes it easier for them to relate to
working-class clients. They made sure
us kids learned that too, growing up. It
sounds like you need to work on that."
"Why?" Jefferson said. "I'm not poor."
"You aren't, but some of your clients
will be," Molly said. "If you can't build
rapport fast in an emergency, then
they won't trust you or tell you things."
"Oh," Jefferson said, looking glum.
"That's not good ... could be dangerous."
"Now you're getting it," Molly said,
wafting a little approval his way.
She didn't want him to wilt,
just pay attention to more
than surface appearances.
Jefferson touched the coffee cup
that read We Are the Champions.
Its handle had broken clean off,
and now it held pens and pencils.
"If the shabby chic decor has
a purpose, then what's this one
all about?" he asked Molly.
"It reminds people that it's
okay not to be okay," she said.
"Things that are a little broken
can still be useful in some way."
"Yeah, okay," Jefferson said.
"I guess that there's more to
this place than meets the eye."
"We like to think so," Dave said.
"Stick around and you'll see more."
"I'll try," Jefferson said. "I'm just
not sure how much use this will
really be in the field, I mean
beyond getting people to talk."
"Rescue work isn't like working in
a hospital where you always have
plenty of supplies," Molly warned.
"You need to know how to improvise
if you run out, or the first thing you try
doesn't work. That's hard to do if you're
used to buying exactly what you need."
Jefferson frowned. "I don't know if --
can you give me an example?"
"Okay, let me tell you about
our last mass-casualty incident,"
Molly said. "Last December there
was a twelve-car pileup in the fog."
"I saw pictures of it on the news,"
Jefferson said. "It looked awful."
"It was awful," Molly said. "We got
there within four minutes of the call.
There were three of us -- only one
a speedster -- and thirty-one victims
because people were carpooling."
"What did you do?" Jefferson said.
"Bethan did the triage at speed, then
we all focused on the worst injuries,"
Molly said. "One victim was a nurse,
who had a broken arm -- badly broken,
in three places -- that she just told us
to strap up so she could help with
her good hand, so that's what we did."
"Another family were Activity Scouts,
so they took over the traffic control,
which helped a lot," Dave said.
"That sounds pretty rough,"
Jefferson said, his eyes wide.
"It was six and a half minutes after
we arrived before the next ambulance
could reach the scene," Dave added.
"Police and fire arrived just after them."
"We lost one patient because we just
didn't have enough hands to cover
all of the critical injuries," Molly said.
"Then we lost another one because
we were running out of supplies. By
the time the second crew arrived, we
were making bandages from T-shirts
and tourniquets from bootlaces."
"Did that work?" Jefferson said,
staring at her with wide eyes.
"Yes," Molly said. "There was
broken glass and bent metal
everywhere, so a lot of people
had heavy bleeding. That's one
of the most lethal things that can
readily be fixed with first aid, and
we saved several lives that way."
"So that's why you need to know
how to use whatever's on hand,
not just the best thing for the job,"
Dave said. "It really matters."
"Do you have any advice?"
Jefferson said, giving
Dave a hopeful look.
"Don't be a toolbag,"
Dave said. "Your head
and your heart will be
your most important tools."
"Don't make one problem worse
while trying to fix another one,"
Molly said. "We see that a lot, when
medics fixate on an obvious injury
but fail to care for the person."
"Feeling helpless is actually
the leading cause of PTSD, and
that can kill someone just as dead
as bleeding out can," Dave said.
"It just takes a while longer."
Jefferson winced. "Yeah,
that's not good. We heard
about that in class. I want
to carry a burner phone
loaded with CarGo and
coping apps to give away."
"That's a great idea," Molly said.
"Dave, jot that down, we could
do that here too. We've been
loaning people a tablet so they can
start putting away bad memories, but
a burner phone they could keep."
"Got it," Dave said, making
a note on his smartphone.
"So how do I --" Jefferson
waved a hand at the room.
"-- learn to do what you do?"
"Poorskills," Molly said. "I'll
take you to the community center
and see what classes they have.
Take one on budgeting and
one on home repairs to start.
Try to make some friends."
"Set yourself a budget as
tight as you can make it,"
Dave said. "We'll help you
figure out how to live on that,
and it'll give you experience."
"You really think that will help
me get along better with people
who have less?" Jefferson said.
"Just remember to focus on
the responsibility to care,"
Molly said. "You'll do fine."
"Okay," Jefferson said. "Let's
check the community center
so I can get started on classes."
His mood had shifted from
disdain to determination.
Yes, he really would do fine.
* * *
Notes:
Jefferson Ream -- He has pinkish-fair skin, brown eyes, and brown hair buzzed short. He is chunky and still trying to work off the fat so he can handle the physical challenges of rescue work. His heritage is American. He is 18 years old in 2015.
Jefferson has an iron stomach and can eat anything, ride the wildest roller-coasters, and never gets queasy at the sight of blood. He goes hunting with his uncles and helps butcher the game. Jefferson wants to become a field doctor and is working his way up through paramedic training before college and later medical school. He took online classes and weekend workshops during his last semester of high school, then finished up his practicals in early summer. The plan is to start the internship with support work in the office, take the tests, and then join the ambulance for few weeks as an assistant paramedic before starting premed in college that fall.
A diligent student, Jefferson easily grasps the information, but he struggles to understand the limitations of field practice. His parents, both doctors, make enough money that he could always buy whatever he wanted, so he has no experienced with jerryrigging or any other poorskills. That makes for a very awkward fit in his summer internship with the Soup to Nuts zoomwagon crew. Molly and Dave have offered to help Jefferson learn poorskills to make it easier for him to get along with folks from different socioeconomic levels.
Qualities: Good (+2) Diligent, Good (+2) Iron Stomach, Good (+2) Logical-Mathematical Intelligence, Good (+2) Popular Crowd, Good (+2) Student
Poor (-2) Spoiled Rich Kid
* * *
"There is no higher honor than to be given the responsibility to care for another human being."
-- Richard K. Schachern
"Don't be a toolbag" <- a quote we tell all the FNGs :rofl:
Shabby-chic is a style of things that look quaintly worn. There are ways to create a shabby-chic paint job on furniture. Upcycling offers many ways to refurbish and reuse old things in new ways, like turning a broken cup into a pencil holder (which I also do).
A socioeconomic gap between clients and caregivers can undermine trust, quality of care, and outcomes. People who actually care about client health may take steps to compensate for this. Most don't bother.
Local-America has the phrase "It's okay not to be okay," but this is more often bait-and-switch than honest. That is, if you reveal any weakness or fail to meet demands, the chance of other people becoming angry, avoiding you, or penalizing you will greatly exceed the chance of them actually helping you. That often makes it logical and even necessary to conceal weaknesses, because the cost of doing so is routinely less that getting caught in a moment of vulnerability by predatory bystanders. Terramagne-America does better in accepting that people have problems and helping each other through the hard times. Specifically, health care providers often hire people with disabilities to show, not just tell, clients that life goes on. Both Mrs. Wu (who is blind) and a broken cup repurposed as a pencil holder subtly send similar messages at Soup to Nuts. Know what to do when everything is awful and it's not okay. These are much more productive instructions than L-America's insistence that everyone perform normally no matter how wrecked they are.
Fog season in California often causes multicar pileups.
The PACE planning method includes multiple options. Survival skills include improvising medical supplies from everyday items. It was actually the availability of a speedster that enabled expending a zoomwagon's entire supply of bandages and tourniquets within minutes, necessitating other items to serve those needs.
Traumatic stress is primarily caused by feeling helpless, and people who don't feel helpless are better able to cope with hardships. Trauma-informed care takes action to restore a sense of safety and control as soon as possible, to minimize the risk of further harm. T-America does this fairly well. L-America often does the exact opposite, increasing rather than reducing harm. Such experiences encourage people to avoid and resist "help" that is not actually helpful.
Preventing PTSD is important, but caregivers are just beginning to identify things that help. First, understand that PTSD is fundamentally a sorting error: the brain can't file traumatic memories properly, so they replay over and over again. Playing a stacking-and-sorting game such as Tetris can activate the brain's sorting function. Making a care diary, timeline, or trauma scrapbook can help place memories in context as part of the life story. Handing out a burner phone preloaded with these materials is a brilliant plan.
Re: Finn solution
(Anonymous) 2021-10-03 03:58 pm (UTC)(link)Though I would reccomend being careful giving away wealth if you're visibly wealthy - you don't want people to clock you as a source for goodies and (understandably) get in the habit of latching onto you as a free stuff resource. (I've donated requested or special-order goodies anonymously, just to avoid the hassle.) Boundaries are important!
Re: Finn solution
That is true. All the Finns seem reasonably adept with money, at their level of current experience. Although Edison using Shiv as a "responsible adult" to access his allowance is a bit of a stretch.
>> Though I would reccomend being careful giving away wealth if you're visibly wealthy - you don't want people to clock you as a source for goodies and (understandably) get in the habit of latching onto you as a free stuff resource. <<
Teleporters talk about "helicopter problems" -- if you can teleport, it's like owning a helicopter, people will bug you for rides. This is a good way to distinguish between mooches and real friends, though. A real friend either won't ask for a ride, or will offer something in trade. Conversely teleporters tend to use "You buy, I fly" as a way to avoid mooching food.
You just have to understand money well enough to know what you want to spend where, and enough about people to manage their expectations. Well, and you need a willingness to punt jerks out of your life.
>> (I've donated requested or special-order goodies anonymously, just to avoid the hassle.) Boundaries are important! <<
This is an excellent and effective solution, even recommended in some religions.
Re: Finn solution
(Anonymous) 2021-10-04 03:23 am (UTC)(link)With a mutually respectful relationship, you can also use humor and friendly sass to indicate displeasure with a situation.
My favorite is to jokingly ask for pay or healthcare benefits...then they say they can't afford it...then I tell them to hang around and help me with whatever they just asked me to do.
I've also done this with allergies: "Are you sure there's no X? 'Cause if there is you get to practice calling an ambulance!" "No, no, we don't want to practice that!"
>>You just have to understand money well enough to know what you want to spend where, and enough about people to manage their expectations. Well, and you need a willingness to punt jerks out of your life.<<
Also, add "Ability to predict human behavior." People will overdraw the commons if their needs are unmet enough, and annoying though that may be, I cannot really fault them for it.
It did, however, cause me to take my reference book home at night over leaving it in the common area to share. (I did still share when I brought it back in, I just wasn't up for buying a new one every few weeks.)
>>This is an excellent and effective solution, even recommended in some religions.<<
Thanks!
While it's not demanded by my religion, some of the foundational beliefs often encourage such things... but it's a good thing to do regardless.