People Care : Career-Friendly Practices for Professional Caregivers

When you kneel in front of somebody''s grandpa who''s sitting on his couch and denying his chest pain, you need to recognize the pain he says isn''t there, detect the shortness of breath he hasn''t mentioned and sense the fear that''s absolutely dominating his consciousness. You need to appreciate the fact that his spouse, seated right there next to him, is scared to death she''s never going to sleep with him again. And somehow, you need to make everything better in just a few minutes. Thes are the dynamics of even the simplest emergency response. The presuppose the presence of gifts in us that not even the greatest teacher can impart - gifts that, unfortunately, come without instructions. This book is an examination of those gifts and a collection of the instructions that didn''t come with them. It''s based on the collective experience and wisdom of dozens of professsional paramedics and EMTs worldwide who learned to love the lifelong pursuit of helping others.