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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good stories, needs editing., October 19, 2009
This review is from: En Route: A Paramedic's Stories of Life, Death, and Everything in Between (Hardcover)
"En Route" is a series of vignettes that tell great stories with great feeling, often putting you right there with the author.
However, there is often a lack of connective material. He seems to change jobs and companies often with no comments or connections. He meets a nurse, asks her out, then is engaged, married, and divorced in little more than a few sentences. People are mentioned with little context- why do we need the full name of a person who pops up a single time without knowing anything else about them?
There is also an assumption that you are familiar with both rural Louisiana and basic paramedic skills- he often mentions locations as if you are already intimately familiar with them, where a brief commentary that this is a one-horse town, or this is a suburb of a better known town, etc. A little more context or background would have been nice.
I also missed any sort of a glossary or explanations of terms he used(although I MUCH prefer explanations in the text). For example, there is a running gag about 'spiking a bag of saline' that I am sure has paramedics in stitches, but becomes kind of annoying to the rest of us.
On the other hand, unlike so many of EMS stories, it does not devolve into an 'its all about me' tale, a morality tale, or anything like that. Instead, it is a good overview of the life of a paramedic- the ups and downs, and built on a nice outline in which each story moves us towards his thoughtful ending.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book, August 3, 2009
This review is from: En Route: A Paramedic's Stories of Life, Death, and Everything in Between (Hardcover)
I am not a paramedic, nor am I in the medical field, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Kelly Grayson is a gifted writer and a deeply compassionate person with an ability to see the humor in difficult situations.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining at times, but often disconnected., January 12, 2011
This review is from: En Route: A Paramedic's Stories of Life, Death, and Everything in Between (Hardcover)
This was an entertaining set of anecdotes culled from a fairly lengthy career as a rural Paramedic in Louisiana.
As an ex-paramedic myself, I don't have the same negative comments regarding the medical terminology as many other reviewers have pointed out, but do have some observations.
Perhaps the most annoying thing about this book is its structure--it is divided into little scenes detailing a particular call or situation. This is all well and good, but the stitching together of these scenes leaves the tale disjointed, and the reader confused. Some connecting material wouldbe a great benefit to the book.
The author also relies on the same choice of words throughout the book...to the point it becomes tiresome. Every call from the dispatcher is a "rude interruption." They "pipe in sunlight" to several locales. It just seems unimaginative. The life of a paramedic is one filled with excitement (good and bad) and very colorful...the story would be better served with more imaginative word choices.
Ultimately, I think the author failed in the primary task of such a book (and I have read dozens!)...to immerse the reader in the emotional connections between paramedic and the Job, and the patients, and the coworkers.
Sadly, I expected much more of this book than was delivered.
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