But there's a whole lot more to it than that, and I'm going to let you know my agenda right off the bat, and I'll be happy to let the pieces fall where they may.

The culture of the paramedic, for the most part, has never  supported talking about many of the extraordinary experiences that the paramedic encounters. I'm talking about things like the emotions that crop up, the amount of personal investment that is placed into a patient, the many different textures of connection that happen, the underlying fears and vulnerabilities that are simply not acknowledged, the way you can "take on" the energy of others and deplete your own life-force, and last but not least, the Spiritual aspects of living and working on the edge of life and death.

I watched, and continue to notice, that many, if not most of the people involved in emergency work in these United States tend to gravitate towards becoming competent flesh mechanics and lose the fine art of simply being a human being in service to the greater goal of healing. In the process, they lose the experience of being healed themselves as they promote healing.

How can I be so bold to make such a statement.? I lived it. By what I now understand as intention, I was able to continue to embrace the work (and, to a certain extent, my relationship with my patients) for twelve years. This was at a time (1985 estimate) when the average burnout was 3.5 years. I burned out on the politics, not the actual work of dealing with the sick, injured, dying and dead. While constantly confronting my own burnout nightmares, I watched as so many of my partners turned cold, both to their patients and within their private lives, because they neither had the permission, tools nor support to come to terms with their experiences.

So, now, I want to get paramedics and other emergency personnel to start talking to each other about the things they fear will make them appear vulnerable. While working with healers of all stripes, I want to especially encourage emergency service workers to use this site as a gathering place for dialogue to begin. 

Yes, I want to change the culture of the paramedic to allow more of the wonder and personal investment to come in; to provide a more honest forum for discussion that recognizes the vast depth of human experience. The degree of dissociation that exists in the profession significantly limits the effectiveness of the paramedic as a vehicle to begin a healing process that will influence patients for the rest of their lives. I desire to do what I can to promote the dialogue so necessary to free medics to remain fully alive while they save lives. In the process, I hope to be able to promote more effective and honest ways of preventing burnout.

To that end, I encourage each of you who stumbles upon this site to check out my articles and see if you can't relate to what I'm speaking of. See if what I say doesn't spur you on to examine your own experiences through the consciousness of your heart. Then, get in touch with me and we'll begin to figure out ways to open up the conversation.

I would be thrilled to bring my workshop and/or counseling to you. I would also love to have a group of you come out for a retreat in Maui.  The HeART of the Healer is a by-product of the key questions I faced as a medic.   There is nothing that you're going through that I haven't had to face myself...and still, I recognize there's more for me to learn. Talk to me, and let's see what we can come up with.

Thanks for visiting
Russ Reina, a firetender

* I began my career in 1973 as a Red Cross First Aider working with the Flushing (N.Y.) Volunteer Ambulance Corps, which brought me through my EMT training (1974). I graduated as a Mobile Intensive Care Unit Paramedic in 1976 (FL) and was American Heart Association Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) certified the first year it was offered. I left the field in 1985, after organizing the first union for paramedics West of the Mississippi (CA, and that's a hell of a story in itself!). When I speak of my experience as a paramedic, I include all the time I spent in the field because it takes too long to specify all the precise details.