I attended high school at St. Michael’s College School in Toronto from 1976 to 1981. St. Mike’s is very much a school steeped in Catholic tradition, but also gives its students a well-rounded and classical education. While I was there, I studied Latin for four years and in so doing I developed an appreciation for the art and literature of ancient Rome. Gods and heroes played a big role in Roman culture. The study of Greek, Roman and Norse gods (as well as those of other cultures) is the study of mythology. And I love mythology!

Janus is the Roman god of doors, gates, bridges and entrances. Early Romans thought he opened the gates of heaven at dawn to let out the morning, and that he closed them at dusk. He is most often depicted as a double-faced head, one looking forward and one looking back. The month of January was named after him. Thus it is that January is a time for us to take stock of the year gone by whilst looking ahead to the coming one. It is a time for reflection and self-analysis; a time for renewal and change; for healing and growth. Who am I to argue with the mighty Roman Empire?

We work in a very young profession. Emergency medical services and the paramedic have only been around for what, thirty, maybe forty years? Tops? Sure, helping sick and injured people and carting them off to hospital has been around a little longer—maybe a hundred or so years. But what we do—that specialized act of bringing medical expertise and care to those who are sick and injured and then conveying them by some means to a hospital for further care—what we do is a brand new vocation.

EMS is nothing short of that. A vocation. A calling. Most of us like to pretend that we are here for some other reason. We do this job for the money, the glory, the fame. Maybe we flunked out of university, or dropped out. Maybe we were looking at a bleak future and in a drunken freshman haze saw the flashing lights of an ambulance race past our wretched, vomiting body on the sidewalk of life and a light went on inside and we said, “Hey! I could do that!” Or, maybe it’s something more.

I don’t know what brought me to this field. I’m not sure why I became a paramedic. I do know that there were many signposts along the way, steering me ever nearer to this profession. But, what put me over the edge? What nudged me over the proverbial precipice into this prehospital profession? Was it the murder-suicide I witnessed in 1977 when I was just 15-years old, when I watched a young mother throw her infant child off the Overlea Boulevard bridge and then climb the rail and jump to her own death? Was it my employment as a lifeguard from the age of sixteen? Was it the girl struck in the crosswalk that I happened across when I was eighteen? Why did I want to help these people? There was no reward then. Just an innate desire to help.

As I reflect back on those events and many others so many years ago, I am struck by this realization. I wanted to help them, so I did. And by helping I felt better. Maybe by helping I purged other demons. Or kept them, at least, at bay. For if I had stood idle, like most others around me, what would that have felt like?

What makes us get involved while so many others don’t, or can’t? Is it ego? Is it a refusal to believe that we could be unable to help? The thought that we could somehow be incapable of solving a problem is foreign to us. Why do we feel it necessary to insinuate ourselves into the lives of so many strangers by entering this profession? We are either the greatest altruists or the ultimate egoists. Which one? Or are we just the most blatant voyeurs in the world, participating in the most extreme reality show ever contrived? We bear witness to the start of life and the coming of death for hundreds, if not thousands, of people during our careers. I have felt like Charon, the ferryman who takes souls across the river Styx, on many occasions. Is that what it is? A sense of power and control? Or are we just more evolved spiritually than everybody else, and along our journey to enlightenment show others the path through our illuminating way?

Whatever the reason that we find ourselves in this profession, the truth is that we are all here together. Through divine intervention or just dumb luck, here we are, fourteen thousand or so of us EMS and paramedic types scattered from sea to sea. A mari usque ad mare. From the 49th Parallel to the North Pole. From Bonavista to Vancouver Island. From the Arctic Circle to the Great Lake waters (apologies to Woody Guthrie). From names of places I can’t pronounce to … well, to names of other places I can’t pronounce. We are a diverse group in the second largest country by land mass in the world. Like our country, our profession is quiet, polite, young and unimposing, hoping to get a seat at the table with all the bigger boys and girls. And, like this great country we call home, we are becoming self-aware. We know our place, and it is at the top of the heap. We touch the sky because we stand on the shoulders of giants.

In Canadian EMS, there are pioneers among us. Some of them have served in the trenches, so to speak, for thirty or forty years. Like Jacques Hins of Toronto EMS who is still a front-line Advanced Care Paramedic after thirty-seven years (and still one of the best hockey players in this city, even if he is a Habs fan). Others have passed before their time, like Halifax paramedic John Rossiter, who died in the line of duty as hurricane Juan ravaged his community. Or Anton (Tye) Tyukodi, who through his colourful and uninhibited lifestyle inspired those around him and lightened their day, even until the very end, when his life was cut short in an ultralight helicopter accident outside of Toronto, where he had worked for over two decades and was one of its first Advanced Care Paramedics back in 1984.

We reflect on the lives of our friends and colleagues and we draw strength from them – the strength to move forward and to persevere in making this profession great. We are in this together and so must look to each other and after each other. There are many who have succumbed under the weight of this profession. Literally. There are so many injured workers in our midst and we must fight for them. And on behalf of them, take up their quarrel with the foe. For if not us who will? This profession eats us. It chews us up and spits us out. And we come back—if we’re able—for more. The masters who hold the purse strings must be made aware of the heavy toll we pay for tending the sick, the meek, the old, the injured, the infirm. And they must be made to keep open those purses to take care of us. And not just physically. This profession takes its toll in other ways, too. If I may quote from the mission statement of the Tema Conter Memorial Trust, “Being exposed to a traumatic event has clearly shown to have significant and long term consequences that affect an individual’s cognitive, emotional and physical health. Emergency service providers face these traumatic events on a regular basis.”

Yes, we do. And we pay the price in our relationships with our families, our wives and husbands, our children and our friends. We must strive for ways to help each other to keep things together – to protect our mental health as much as our physical well-being.

Indeed a new year is upon us. And, just as Janus gazes back across the passage of time and eyes the future by releasing the dawn of a new day, so too must we seize this opportunity to renew our faith in ourselves, our colleagues and our families. I hope and pray that all of you, my extended family in EMS, have a prosperous and fulfilling year in your personal lives and your careers. May you continue to find the strength to give of yourselves your gift of healing and comfort, and in so doing reap the rewards that are your due.Happy New Year!