SSB 110
Prof. John
Viviana Duran
During this semester, I have learned many aspects of the human society. However,
regardless of my knowledge of sociology, there are some places that we, as human beings, do
not feel comfortable visiting. We also tend to dislike certain people because of our different
personalities and life status. In my personal experience, I do not like to visit hospitals or
anything involved with this field. Therefore, I decided to confront my fear by visiting a place
called AMR (American Medical Response), and interview my friend who happens to work
for this medical institute as a paramedic. In addition, with my new lens of sociology, I was
able to live a unique sociological experience with regard to the elements of society such as
religion, education, age, gender, and socioeconomic status.
I decided to accompany my friend to one of her regular daily duties at her job. When
we got to the place where she works I was very impressed, I felt a little scared, and nervous.
In order for my friend to be able to start her duties, first she has to go to the ambulance
garage. This place is always very busy, they have around 200 ambulances, they have
receptionist, people who report the work of the paramedics and cleaning people. The
supervisor director of operation sends her to a specific area location such as Brooklyn and
then they give her all the medical equipments, so that she can start working with another
partner. I did not have the opportunity to go inside the ambulance with my friend because
they have rules and regulations in this place, which don’t allow outside visitors to enter.
Nevertheless, I decided to interview her before she started working.
She started telling me that she works inside or outside the ambulance and in all types
of weather. She said that there are numerous activities that require doing considerable
kneeling, bending, and heavy lifting. They have to be exposed to some risks like those that
hearing lost from sirens and back injuries from lifting patients. In addition, paramedics may
be exposed to diseases such as hepatitis-B and AIDS, as well as violence from drug overdose
victims or mentally unstable patients. She also said that the kind of work she does is not only
physically exhausting, but also stressful, involving life or death situations and dealing with
suffering patients.
Moreover, paramedics have to work many hours, partners have to turn around every
6 hours to drive. The paramedics employed by fire departments work about 50 hours a week.
Those employed by hospitals frequently work between 45 and 60 hours a week, and those in
private ambulance services, between 45 and 50 hours. Some of these workers, especially
those in police and fire departments, are on call for extended periods. Because emergency
services function 24 hours a day, paramedics have irregular working hours that add to job
stress. Nevertheless, she said that many people find the work exciting or challenging and
enjoy the opportunity to help others.
I asked her for some of the experiences she has had while working as a paramedic in
AMR. She says that experiences different situations every day such as automobile accidents,
heart attacks, drowning, and childbirth. One of the bad experiences she had was one day
when a person from a nightclub called at 911, they immediately responded and the guy said
that somebody shouted his friend, so they went right away to the night club. When they got
there, they figured out that the person was shouted on the heart and he was dead. They felt
very sad because the person was very young, he was just 23 years old and there was nothing
they could do to save his life. “Cases like this one are very hard to deal with”, says my friend.
On the other hand, she had a good experience another day that a pregnant woman
called at 911, the women was having contractions so my friend helped her to deliver the
baby; in this case they have to stop the ambulance and do all the process indoors. My friend
felt happy when the baby was born. When she told me all these stories, for one moment I
thought that sometimes we don’t realize that there are people who really suffer, and pass for
difficult situation in life, like having a grave disease, being a drug addict or been paralyzed,
since we just worry about insignificant things that cannot not even be compared to those
situations that these people live.
While interviewing my friend I realized that there are some important elements of
society that have affected her life. For instance, when we talked about her social status, she
told me that she is living along since she was 15 years old. For this reason she started
confronting life at an early age and she learned to be responsible for herself since she was
very young. She had to study and work at the same time, so that she could pay her own
tuition. All these factors have affected her life in many ways. For instance, if she would had
had higher social position, or her family around to help her out, probably she would had
chosen a more prestigious career like a doctor, nurse, lawyer, or something less risky, but
because of her lower-social position and because she was living by herself, she decided to
study something quick and not too expensive: paramedic, so in this way she could get some
money and later on be able to go back to college to study a better career where she could
prepare to be more knowledgeable and become more professional, so that she could get a
better job.
Due to society stereotypes, I think gender has also affected her life. She said that in
this field men have more opportunities to get the job. Since men are considered to be stronger
than woman, for a man who is doing the same work as she does is much easier, but for her
because she is a woman sometimes is more difficult. For example, when they have to lift
heavy people, carried the patient from one place to another, when carrying heavy medical
equipments, or when they are protecting people from fire emergencies. In comparison to men
who are considering being stronger, women feel more nervous when they have to all these
kind of work. This factor has influenced her life in the way that now she says that she does
not make any difference concerning men and women’s job. She thinks that gender should not
matter when you wish to perform any task in life. She said that one should always try hard
and never give up, and give the best we can if you really want to accomplish all your goals in
life.
Another element of society that has affected her life is age. In her case, she started
working as a paramedic when she was just twenty-three years old. At that time, she was very
young and very open to learn new things about life. Studying this career opened her mind to
the real world and it was easier for her to learn very quickly. The fact that she was a single
woman with not responsibilities allowed her to dedicate more time to her studies. When I
interviewed her I could deduct that these had been the most three important factors that have
affected her life.
Overall, the sociological elements we have studied in class such as social status,
gender and age have contributed to the way my friend perceive the world. The social
environment in which she was raised made her a stronger person with a strong personality
and a very strong character. She thinks that you can overcome any barrier in life if you really
want to achieve your goals. People like my friend are inevitable not to admire. They perform
very risky duties and save many people’s life even if they have to risk their own. All these
aspects made me realize that society and the environment in which we are raised have a big
impact in human’s life. Therefore we should not judge people just because we do not like
them, what we should is always put ourselves into other’s shoes before judging them.