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From two point zero to medical hero

It has been a long road for former University of Oregon student Robert Parrish, but hard work and perseverance have helped him get his life back on track.

By Ben Brown

Four years ago Robert Parrish finished his first year at the University of Oregon with a grade point average below 2.0. His parents pulled their funding, citing what they saw as a lack of commitment and Parrish was left without direction, without a place to live, and deeply in debt. Unwilling to give up, Parrish moved into a dark, empty apartment with no heat and few working lights and started to work at a series of dead-end jobs.

Robert Parrish, LCC paramedic student and CAHOOTS employee is hoping to work as a paramedic for a couple of years before attending medical school.

Four months from now, Parrish will be taking the national exam to become a paramedic. Currently, in addition to attending school, he works for CAHOOTS, giving aid to the homeless, the drunk and the drug-addicted.
To make ends meet during the intervening years Parrish sold credit cards, conducted telephone surveys, unloaded baggage from buses, shipped packages, cleaned up all manner of bodily fluids and dealt with more than his fair share of drunk and mentally unbalanced people.

“ It was probably better for me in the long run,” Parrish says ruefully, referring to the two years he spent out of school and working. “You don’t have time to learn all your lessons by experience, but sometimes it helps.”

With the help of friends and an ambition born of no small amount of desperation, Parrish found a way to make ends meet, got out of debt and back into school in the EMT basic program at Lane Community College. Although his goal is to become a doctor, Parrish is planning to work as a paramedic for a few years before attending medical school. Part of the reason he is taking the time to work is the cost of school.

“ LCC is a lot less expensive than going to the U of O,” Parrish says.
According to Parrish, the paramedic program at LCC is fantastic and has one of the highest pass rates of any program in the state.

The LCC paramedic program is only a two-year degree, but getting through it is no picnic. In his year at LCC in the EMT basic program, Parrish earned a 3.5 grade point average, but that only got him part of the way there. Parrish says his work for CAHOOTS was a major factor in being accepted to the paramedic program.

Failure on only a few assignments, or an inability to earn at least a C in each class is grounds for automatic dismissal from the program.

The program is work-intensive, and students have to be up to the challenge. Instructors cover 60 to 70 pages of reading for every hour of lecture.

“It’s a lot of reading,” says Parrish, sounding exhausted. “It’s a big book, like 1,500 pages.” In addition, Parrish also has several other books for every class, including one dedicated to specifically to learing to read an EKG.

The program also incorporates hands-on learning in the form of clinicals. Students spend eight-hour shifts working in a hospital, cleaning bedpans, changing sheets, starting IV’s and doing anything else they are asked to. Mostly they observe, hoping to pick up valuable skills.

	These are five of the many books Parrish must study in order to become a paramedic. In addition to the main book, he must also read books on emergerncy medicine and one on the EKG.

In addition, students in the second term of the program have an internship working on an ambulance with an EMS crew. The students start as observers and aides, but, once students prove they are up to the task, they are allowed to handle emergency situations in the field under supervision.

In addition to his studies to be a paramedic Parrish has continued to work for CAHOOTS, Eugene’s non-emergency response service. CAHOOTS, which stands for Crisis Assistance Helping Out On the Streets, was founded 15 years ago to work in tandem with the Eugene Police Department. Each van contains one medic and one crisis worker whose job it is to deal with people in crisis.

Parrish says CAHOOTS deals with a variety of calls; from people who have been in a bike accident and need to know if they should go to the hospital, to the drunk and the mentally ill.

“ What CAHOOTS gives you as a paramedic is really good patient interaction,” says Parrish. “You get to observe and interact with patients in an effective way.”

“One of the downfalls of any didactic, classroom setting, for EMS or anything involving health care, is that you don’t get a chance to deal with patients, especially difficult patients,” Parrish says.
Parrish has had to deal with more than his share of difficult patients. Some of the people Parrish helps have what is known as dual diagnosis. This means that they have a drug or alcohol problem in addition to a mental illness.

“Sometimes it’s hard to get them to do even things they want to do,” says Parrish. “There aren’t a lot of other agencies in this area that deal with someone who has both of these problems."

Often, Parrish serves as an advocate for these people. He tells the story of one mentally ill young man who had been thrown out of the hospital for being disruptive. The man went to a field, cut open his arm, and allowed flies to lay eggs in the wound. When he returned to the hospital days later the staff remembered him from before and threw him out again. The young man then had to clean and bandage the wound himself.

When Robert got to the young man he was once again injured and deathly afraid of returning to the hospital. He was afraid the doctors would “inject him with genocide.”

“Sometimes doctors get tunnel vision,” Parrish says. “They see that a patient is drunk but not that his arm is broken.”

Often cases like this can be the most satisfying. Parrish says that often people are working hard to get off the street and off drugs, but they just need a little help.

“It’s like they get stranded,” he says. “Some people, it’s not even that big a thing that they need; they just don’t have any idea where to look for that help.”

In addition to helping out patients CAHOOTS also works closely with police to take some of the burden off their shoulders. Parrish says that often when a person is intoxicated and needs to go to a detoxification center, CAHOOTS will be called in by the police.

Because of the differing legal responsibilities CAHOOTS does not have to spend nearly as much time on paperwork as the police do.

“The people who look at the reports we make are not nearly as numerous as the people who look at the reports the police make,” Parrish says.

Parrish is set to take the national paramedic exam in late July, and he believes that his time working for CAHOOTS will help him pass.

A big part of the test is a practical exam where EMS workers man different stations where students are asked to perform life-saving actions correctly within a time limit. Parrish believes that working for CAHOOTS has taught him to work effectively under pressure, giving him a template to work from that you can’t gain in a classroom.
Parrish is satisfied with his work and looking forward to a future as a paramedic and doctor.

“ There are days when you feel that you’ve actually helped someone get
something they needed,” Parrish says.