Ultimately, even in the most clear-cut of cases, if a patient dies in the ambulance, an emergency medic may not learn the cause of death, or whether there was anything they could have done differently to change the outcome.

What if a chef never tasted a final dish? What if a teacher wasn’t allowed to grade tests? Would a lawyer be okay with never hearing a verdict? “If you don’t know if you’re bettering patients,” Kaczmarek said, “how do you keep coming to work?”

This is very saddening but also important to understand. It is somewhat bizarre to me that the Department of Transportation designated the EMS system. These roots must deeply contribute to how undervalued EMS work is in the healthcare industry.