How To Be An Amazing EMS Mentor The Best Job Ever by Troy Shaffer @ EMS Flight Safety Network

Let’s be honest.
We all want an awesome mentor.
Someone to take us by the hand and show us a better way.
Someone to save us time, money and frustration. How awesome would that be, right?
 Here’s the thing.
If you’re good at what you do, sooner or later the day will come when someone – an employee, co-worker, student or acquaintance – comes to you for advice.
Someone who is looking for a mentor, and to them, you fit the bill perfectly.
Is Mentoring Worth It Is mentoring worth the effort?
In a word, yes.
But, it’s a very personal decision. You must decide how much value mentoring has to you.
After watching hundreds of professional flight crews mentor wannabe flight crews, I can tell you with certainty it’s a pretty great experience for all involved. A lot of times the mentor benefits as much or more than the mentee.
Why?
Because the feeling you get when someone tells you they’re “living their dream” thanks to your help, is pretty incredible. It’s right up there with someone thanking you for saving their life.
If you’re EMS, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
So how do you do it? And how do you get good at it?
How do you become the amazing mentor you would want to have for yourself?
Here are 10 tips to get you started:
10 Tips for Becoming An Amazing EMS Mentor 1. Be a giver It kind of goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyways.
Being a mentor is about being a giver. And it’s also about giving for the right reasons.
Know your priorities up front. Are you mentoring for the right reasons? If your only motivation is yourself, stop. Mentoring isn’t about you.
Don’t trap someone and force your personal story upon them.
Mentoring is about helping others for the right reasons. Give more than you get.
2. Give Advice Beyond Work Think how shallow your life would be if all you did was work. If your biggest source of happiness was work.
Think how much you would be missing. I know from personal experience it’s not fulfilling. You can read 10 Warning Signs of Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome (AIDS)here.
The point is to give advice beyond work. Get to know the whole person. Find out their hopes, dreams, plans and schemes beyond work.
If you help a person advance their EMS or Air medical career and they’re still unhappy, how much did your really help them?
3. Set Expectations Up Front Set expectations together in the very beginning.
Until you know exactly what a person wants to achieve, and how they hope to achieve it, you really can’t help them.
It’s important to sit down and go over expectations, especially if you’re just meeting each other or have spent little time together.
This scenario happens often with EMS. For example, a student aspires to become a paramedic and wants your experienced paramedic advice on how to do it.
You might be wondering if they want to work for your company, or if they’re just looking for advice on how to become a paramedic anywhere. It’s the type of thing you want to ask up front.
4. Approach Each Mentorship Differently People are different. As a mentor, you need to adapt your style to what works best for the person seeking your advice. Again, remember that it’s not about you.
It’s about getting results for the person you’re helping.
Remind yourself what worked best for you, or the last person you mentored, may or may not work today.
We see examples of this in EMS Flight Safety Network all the time. What got one person hired as a flight medic a year ago, may or may not help a person who aspires to fly today. They’re two different people and a lot can change in a year.
5. Mentor with Passion The greatest of mentors inspire their mentees and become living examples to emulate.
How do they do it?
They do it by exuding a genuine passion for their work. Get excited about EMS and what you do. Passion is contagious.
Remind yourself of why you chose an EMS career. Remind yourself it was a good decision then, and it