Street Medicine—Assessment Work Strategies of Paramedics on the Front Lines of Emergency Health Services

Abstract

This article is based on an institutional ethnographic inquiry into the work of paramedics and the institutional setting that organizes and coordinates their work processes in a major City in Canada. Drawing on more than two hundred hours of observations and more than one hundred interviews with paramedics (average length of 18 minutes) and other emergency medical personnel, this article explores the standard and not so standard work of paramedics as they assess and care for their patients on the front lines of emergency health services. The multiplicity of interfacing social, demographic, locational, and situational factors that shape and organize the work of paramedics are analyzed. In doing so, this article provides insights into the complex work of an understudied yet ever-important profession in health care.