Customer Reviews

My Ambulance Education: Life and Death on the Streets of the City

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The pager goes off. The adrenalin kicks in. You listen to hear what the call is. The ambulance speeds to scene to help the sick or injured. The only common factor in every ambulance call is the race into the unknown and that every run has a unique story to it.

It's those stories Dr. Joseph Clark tells in his book, "My Ambulance Education: Life and Death on the Streets of the City."

The book starts with a punch just like when EMTs and Paramedics are awoken from a deep sleep. The raw and honest stories tell a real-life view of what both volunteers and paid providers face as part of the ambulance crews who take care of all of us. Dr. Clark writes of his emergency medical responses, his personal growth and his private tales.

After my personal three decades of EMS work, I can assure anyone who wants to read about the excitement and unusual roadside and residence tales faced by EMS every day must read this book. For the seasoned volunteer and professional there will be a lot of nodding in agreement with Dr. Clark's treatments and emergency department interactions. For those considering joining "the ranks" this book will provide a down-to-earth expectation of what lies ahead.

This is one of the few books that portray EMS as it really is. I found each story better than the previous one and the book impossible to put down.

Read "My Ambulance Education: Life and Death on the Streets of the City" by Dr. Joseph Clark and appreciate EMS responders - BEFORE you need them!

Whenever an ambulance goes by, everyone stops what they're doing and watches. We all wonder what's happened and what will be done. Well stop wondering! Joe Clark tells all. As a college student with a need to make money, Joe drove an ambulance in the big city and lets us in on the inner workings of an all-night ambulance crew. Sometimes chilling, occasionally gruesome, always captivating the well-written tales of Dr. Clark had me hooked from the first page. Fiction isn't this good. As a caring and well-trained EMT Joe makes you realize what a difficult job a New York ambulance driver faces. Get this book. You'll love it.

Dr. Clark takes the reader on a true and real journey of the little known or seen life of an EMT. The recollections are reality based, sometimes brutally so, but always with the dignity of the players kept in mind. This book will help people better understand and appreciate the work the EMT's do on a daily basis. The work we really don't think or worry about until we need their help. While the heroes of 9/11 will always be in the forefront of our minds, let us not forget the other EMT's who have and continue to keep our world safe. This should be required reading for all prospective nurses and doctors!

Short stories about an array of different emergency calls. Quick read. Author has a good sense of humor. However, it does'nt offer much detail if you are looking for gory descriptions of what happens to a body that has been shot, found in a car accident, etc. Does not go into many specific details on life saving procedures. I don't think it explains in much detail the emotional affects of what emergency personnel go through. You can imagine how hard it must be to see what they see but a detailed explanation is lacking. It is a good, short story, enjoyable read but if you are looking for deeper details I would check out "Trauma Junkie" you can't beat it!

At the beginning I was struck by the brutal and gross language, but I soon understood this is a brilliant way in which the author depicts the reality. I enjoyed this book very much, and it helped reinforce my "EMS" bug (I'm currently an EMT in training).

For a background, I ran ambulance for a few years and was an EMT. I also ran fire calls and rescue calls for about 15 years. I was a volunteer in a small town.

I have a lot of things I saw over my time but I was glad I did not have some of the experiences that he had. That being said, I think it is tough for a "former" volunteer to totally become disinterested in the things they volunteered to do.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and his experiences. Some of what I found interesting was the interaction between the ambulance people and the police - sometimes the lack of interaction when things were potentially dangerous. It was a quick read and I enjoyed it.

Neurology professor Joe Clark looks back on how he funded his college and graduate degrees by working nights and weekends on the ambulance. As an EMT in New York City Joe saw it all. He organized the book into thematic chapters around themes like drugs, drunks, suicide, birth, and death. Each chapter is a combination of his parallel worlds - patient calls and college studies. The book is a chronology of his time on the ambulance and Joe shares his thought process of first striving to become a paramedic, then becoming a pre-med student, and then deciding to become a medical researcher.

The writing in My Ambulance Education is excellent. The details are vivid and as a paramedic myself I could feel his stress and increasing burnout. By writing My Ambulance Education Joe brings the challenges and rewards to a general audience in a way that is captivating and respectful.

Joe's research keeps him connected with EMS professionals and educators. Joe was a panel member for the EMSEduCast Journal Club, has been a guest on the EMS Garage Podcast, and is presenting the EMS Boot Camp session: A Google Search is Not Research.

A very cool/gruesome read. All of the stories are parceled in bit-sized, episodic fashion, and speak of a horrific true life world where you really do have to be a special person to perform in.

Unfortunately, amongst all this internal (between the pages) human suffering, we are 'sold' this Paperback Book in Made In China packaging. The pages are thick, bleached white; almost plastic. Why? To include random color photographs in the middle of the book? To make a (in reality) 100 page book stretch to a 250 page length? Or just for the publisher to save on some good ole' green backs?

I'm usually aware of a books manufacturing (for obvious environmental reasons) but didn't find out about MY AMBULANCE EDUCATION's country of origin until I got home.

Tsk-tsk-tsk Firefly Publishers. Tsk-tsk-tsk

This book starts out with a very grim, and very real, situation the author found himself in when working as an EMT, and it doesn't slow down one bit. "My Ambulance Education" isn't very focused on the clinical side of things and it isn't focused on telling an entertaining story. Rather, the author shares his experiences as a young EMT and the impact it has on him as he went through college, eventually deciding to attend medical school.

I recently obtained my EMT-B certification and am engaged to an EMT-P (paramedic). Having learned a lot about EMS over the last nearly 2 years, I have to say that this book is an excellent look into the life of 911-based EMS. If you are considering becoming an EMT, or joining the public safety ranks in one way or another, this book is a good glimpse into what you may experience.

For what it's worth, the author states that in the introduction that if he had it to do over again, he would have skipped his ambulance education.

This was a trade paperback printed on the most lovely, silky paper (think elementary school workbooks), and so had the smell. You know that smell. It pulls you into a sense of peace and immediately makes you like the book. Due to the nature of the lovely paper it was quite a heavyweight book, so no single handed reading on this one.

Some of the stories were rather disturbing, and it seems that some patients would have been better off if they had died at the scene. No one deserves what some of these people had to suffer.

There was a nice section of photographs which helped to give faces to the people you were reading about.

This was a nice read - fascinating, fast moving, and very well written. It had the feel of House's Wilson in an ambulance. The book was immediately engrossing and tastefully dealt with potentially icky experiences while still being refreshingly honest. The author is also the Dean Koontz of memoir writers - successfully blending the horror of the job with humor. This is definitely recommended for medical drama fans.