New Partner....

For the past 4 months or so I have been without a permanent partner. We, like so many other services, are short-handed on Paramedics and I have been with part-timers or my supervisor. I am finally out of the "round-robin" of part-time partners. The higher-ups have deemed it necessary to give me a semi-permanent partner. I say semi because he is on loan from another shift. We are together until I am cut loose to function on my own. Then I will be put with an Intermediate or Basic partner, which are much easier to come by for hiring.

I used to give over my keys to the rig to him every morning, but other than that I know very little because he has not been with the service for very long. We are the same age, but he has been a Medic for about 5 years or so. We have been together for about 2 shifts and have only ran 5 calls. We have been really slow as of late. He does his calls and I do mine, with little talk between us.

The one call that had anything to it was a chest pain. Not sure what his intentions were but he kinda stood back and let me do all the work; O2, IV, monitor and treatment. It was my call, but I am used to working as a team and doing things accordingly. With 2 Medics, you can get things done a lot faster if one is doing one thing and the other is doing another. Maybe he was trying to see how I do things or if I could do them. Either way it got done, I don't think that the patient was having a heart attack anyway, but I treated him like he was. Partner meanwhile just stood there watching then got up front and drove.

I don't necessary think he's lazy. Maybe he's just pissed at being moved against his will, even if it is for only 6 months or less. It took about 3 months for me and my first partner to get to know each other and work well together. He was really quiet at first, then I couldn't get him to shut up. Hopefully the same will be the case with the new partner...