My life has been a hodgepodge of professions, skills, schooling, and jobs bearing only passing relation to one another. My Bachelor of Science degree matches my wide interests. Due to varied interests and scheduling education around a full-time job, I graduated with a General Studies in Social Science and a minor in Professional Writing.
My Minor in Professional Writing was in the journalism track and I did some articles for The Vanguard back in the late nineties. My favorite was an interview with Ursula Le Guin. I am a big science fiction fan and wanted to interview her. It was going to be my best experience at PSU. It turned out we were both sick with the flu and neither one of us was in top form for the interview. Sad but true.
Writing At Work and More School
Except for The Vanguard, I have not published anything, but for the past twenty-five years I have worked in professions needing medical documentation. I was a paramedic for seven years and wrote a lot of medical charts using the SOAP method. SOAP means subjective, objective, assessment, and plan. The subjective part of patient reports is the medical history elicited from the patient, family, or bystanders. The objective portion is a record of various medical signs and vitals discovered while examining the patient. Assessment is a preliminary diagnosis, and the plan reported patient management including medications and procedures. The past fifteen or more years I worked as an Emergency Communication Specialist and Emergency Transport Coordinator. Documenting emergency care and transportation of patients is a significant part of my job. After graduating I wanted to learn new writing skills and enrolled in the technical writing track for my M.S. I have brought my new skills to work and brought my work projects to class.
The program has benefited my workplace by improving my writing. I edited and redesigned the standard operating procedures for radio communication during disasters. These include operating the hardware and software. Instructions include those for the 800 MHz multi-channel radio and data entry into the Access database forms. I also created a manual for our backup ham radio for use during a catastrophic power, phone, and public safety radio failure. However, these creations have played only a minor part of my duties as an emergency transport coordinator. As a communication hub for much of the emergency medical communications in the metro area, we provide the coordinating communications for ambulances, hospitals, and first responders, and we document the transactions. Thus, documentation has been and continues to occupy most of my writing experience. I also act as transportation coordinator for patients needing specialized skills.
This is interesting and challenging as it needs diplomacy to get doctors, hospital bureaucracies, and air and ground ambulances to get the patient to the right place at the right time.
Sales and Marketing
Many years ago I was a sales agent for a small laundry company. I had a delivery route and was paid a commission on the services I provided to local businesses. I enjoyed the freedom of travel, making money by joining needs to products, and landing new clients. Too bad the owner’s new son-in-law needed a steady job. Some years later another selling experience came about. After working as a paramedic for five years, I was getting weary of carrying obese people up and down stairs. My back was bothering me and I became sick of sick people. I thought I’d try something more lucrative and easier on my body too. I went to school and became an insurance agent. That lasted a few weeks. Selling fear for a living did not work well with me so I went back to being a paramedic.
When I was selling linen services, clean uniforms and such it was fine. It was a clean job. But selling insurance was playing on the insecurities of people for a reward. It is not for me.
Publishing and How I See It
Book publishing seems to be more entangled with other media each year. It shares public attention with TV, film, computer games, and the Internet. This is due to the changes in our culture caused by new technologies. However, these competing mediums cut into the quality-time for potential readers. Readers are just as likely to watch satellite TV, or cruise the web as open a book. Books have to provide something that everything else lacks. I would say that books and the experience of reading good books is unique and valuable. There is a mystique the electronic formats cannot match. It has to do with the reader and the author. The author attempts to convey the story and the reader while reading, creates something unique to the reader. Publishers are the intermediaries. They provide the vehicle containing the message of the author to the readers. However, what arrives on the bookshelf is a message composed by authors, editors, designers, and marketers. It is a group effort and I am only now discovering its complexity.
A Book I Am Reading
The Wandering Soul: Glimpses of a Life, A Compendium of Rare and Unpublished Works by William Hope Hodgson. Compiled and Introduced by Jane Frank. Tartarus Press.
My Publishing Goals I will use the lessons learned at Portland State Univerity to write, and market articles, short stories, and books. Oh yeah, I might start a blog.
