Rating: 
Summary: Powerful blend of pathos, humor, and honesty.
Review: "Ambulance Girl" is the absorbing true story of how and why Jane Stern, a depressed and anxious borderline agoraphobic, decides to become an Emergency Medical Technician. Jane was a 52-year-old writer for a food magazine when she realized that she was sinking fast emotionally. Her marriage was beginning to fray, she spent an inordinate amount of time loitering around the house in her bathrobe, and she suffered from panic attacks. Sessions with therapists were not helping.Stern started to turn her life around with a new therapist, and she decided that in order to help herself, she would have to help others. She studied to become, of all things, an Emergency Medical Technician with the volunteer fire department in Georgetown, Connecticut. This was a strange choice for a woman who was emotionally shaky and chronically terrified. "Ambulance Girl" is both hilarious and poignant. Stern recalls how she had to overcome her claustrophobia and fear of moving vehicles before she could ride in an ambulance. She also writes with wit and disarming candor about her many shortcomings. When she first started out, she made so many mistakes that she felt sorry for the victims who were stuck with her as their EMT! On various occasions, she found herself babbling incoherently into her two-way radio, forgetting her eyeglasses and watch when she went out on a call, and accidentally kicking the broken hip of an elderly lady who was lying helplessly on the floor. In spite of her initial ineptitude, Stern became a competent EMT, and she was gratified to discover that her work invigorated her and imbued her with a new sense of purpose. Stern deserves a great deal of credit for lifting herself out of a deep depression and gaining the acceptance of the Georgetown firemen and her fellow EMT's. "Ambulance Girl" is an entertaining and unusual account of a brave woman's determination to face her fears and bring out the best in herself against all odds.
Rating: 
Summary: Sad Sack gets out more
Review: "If you have a patient whose leg or arm is partially amputated, do not pull it off to make things 'neat' ".
Such is one of the "don'ts" of Emergency Medicine. Darn, and I did that only yesterday!
Best-selling author Jane Stern is a columnist for GOURMET mag, and, with her husband, is a regular guest on National Public Radio. By her own admission, she is, or was, also something of a Sad Sack: afraid of airplanes and buses and so depressed as to not even shed her bathrobe and fuzzy slippers and leave the house on a daily basis. So, she begins seeing a shrink and, as sort of a personal dare, decides to become an Emergency Medical Technician. AMBULANCE GIRL is the story of her determination to get out more.
Stern's life takes on a whole new dimension as she attends EMT "boot camp", takes the national certification exam (which she passes), gets hired by her hometown EMT force, learns to get along with firemen, begins to go out on emergency calls, and encounters her "firsts". Her first accident victim, her first dead patient, her first AIDS sufferer, her first "crazy person", her first suicide, her first dead dog, etc. (Dog?!)
The first three-quarters of the book is pretty much a hoot, then becomes more somber during the remainder as Jane describes the burn-out that puts a severe strain on her marriage and threatens to return her to a permanently depressed state. It's apparent by the book's conclusion that Stern's existence tottering on the edge of total dysfunction is a constant not easily ameliorated. (Perhaps that can be said of all of us.) Only her ability to share her life and experiences with a self-deprecating humor saves AMBULANCE GIRL from being a downer.
At 228 pages in relatively large type, this hardback is a very quick and entertaining read, allowing you to soon move on to something either more substantive or trashy depending on your taste.
Rating:
Summary: ambulance girl
Review: AMBULANCE GIRL by Jane Stern How does an overweight, middle age, clinically depressed, claustrophobic woman who is afraid of ambulances become an EMT? Answer: with grit, determination and a thoroughly disarming sense of humor.
Her wild ride through the extensive training to be an Emergency Medical Technician for the Georgetown, CT, Fire Department is just as breathtaking as her subsequent experiences chasing and actually riding in ambulances. The chapters are short, concise and each one an adventure in itself.
Jane Stern is an accomplished writer, coauthor with her husband of many books including ROADFOOD and SQUARE MEALS and her talent makes AMBULANCE GIRL another delicious treat.
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Summary: Stern Medicine
Review: Ever since I first stumbled across Jane Stern (ROADFOOD), I have devoured every title with glee, rejoycing in the wonders of Elvis, food, The Sixties, Pop Culture, Bad Taste and purebreed dogs. Naturally, the Sunday morning I saw AMBULANCE GIRL sitting on the new release table at my local mega-bookstore I snatched it up, raced for an oversize armchair and settled down to read before buying. One day Jane sees a sign for volunteer EMTs at the local firehouse and plunges her fifty-something, sqeamish self into the world of EMTs enduring EMT-B boot camp. And once she's passed the exam, the real tests begin. From who truly holds the power in a county becoming over run with McMansions to the woman who the reading public doesn't get to see with each radio show and Gourmet column, Jane enthralls. For anyone who thinks Jane Stern needs her hubby Michael to write a decent book, think again! The writing is crisp, clean and the story moves along at a steady speed. A must have for even the casual Stern fan.
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Summary: Funny, Moving, Inspirational. A book to read and re-read
Review: First, this book is a joy to read. Stern's self-effacing humor ingratiates her from page one, and her adventures becoming "Ambulance Girl" are absolutely hilarious. But like the best comedy, this story isn't just laughs. It is underlaid with a poignancy that makes it a powerful example of someone who learns to overcome adversity, especially that kind of adversity that bedevils us from the inside. Ultimately, I found this book truly inspirational. If you like to laugh, and if you want to be uplifted by the power of the human spirit to find meaning in life, get on board and go for a ride with Ambulance Girl!
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Summary: Not even close....
Review: From my point of view this book captured the escence of EMS in a way that has nothing to do with the medicinal refrence. Im an Volunterr EMT in one of the posh towns of fairfield county and she whines about our good equipment and she thinks having an ambulance with transmission fluid leeking from the bottom is some high honor. If you want to save peoples lives you need the best equipment. I just believe her ignorance to the rest of fairfield county for having to much money is annyoing/
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Summary: So Grateful to Have Found This Book!!!!
Review: Hard to believe, but I'd never heard of Jane Stern before Ambulance Girl, which was on the "New Books" shelf at the library. Utterly riveting; couldn't put it down! The author is so endearingly honest, and her guts & bravery in telling her tale the way she does just knocks me out. I wish I could write like this! She had me laughing out loud, and her ability to observe the everyday poignancy of life without getting all schmaltzy about it made me cry. Oh, I just think this is the best book, and will urge everyone I know, male & female alike, to read it. Jane Stern, for me, has joined the ranks of Favorite Writers Ever, i.e., Betty MacDonald, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Eleanor Estes, Elizabeth Enright (there are a few more), and I can't wait to read all of her (with Michael) other books. Thank you, Jane Stern, for a great, funny, true and inspiring mid-life BOOST to this reader, and undoubtedly to many many more!!!! God bless you.
Rating:
Summary: So Grateful to Have Found This Book!!!!
Review: Hard to believe, but I'd never heard of Jane Stern before Ambulance Girl, which was on the "New Books" shelf at the library. Utterly riveting; couldn't put it down! The author is so endearingly honest, and her guts & bravery in telling her tale the way she does just knocks me out. I wish I could write like this! She had me laughing out loud, and her ability to observe the everyday poignancy of life without getting all schmaltzy about it made me cry. Oh, I just think this is the best book, and will urge everyone I know, male & female alike, to read it. Jane Stern, for me, has joined the ranks of Favorite Writers Ever, i.e., Betty MacDonald, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Eleanor Estes, Elizabeth Enright (there are a few more), and I can't wait to read all of her (with Michael) other books. Thank you, Jane Stern, for a great, funny, true and inspiring mid-life BOOST to this reader, and undoubtedly to many many more!!!! God bless you.
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Summary: EMT Without Fear!
Review: How do you overcome paralyzing phobias that are destroying both your marriage and your life? Jane Stern,famous author and popular culture guru, makes a wildly unorthodox,but both creative and daring choice. "Ambulance Girl"is a highly personal,bold and compelling account of her determination to become an EMT. In pages filled with humor and frankness, Jane shows us it is possible to take control of our fears, while at the same time helping others. After this experience, she says "I now think that I am the type of person who would faint at the sight of a spider but could run into a burning building to save a person. Fear is like a hologram. It seems filled with substance and when you go beyond it you realize it was just an illusion". The story of Jane's extraordinary transformation also makes us think about improving our own lives in an altruistic way. It is truly inspirational, a must read.
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Summary: How to save lives while you save yourself.
Review: I first heard Jane Stern on NPR. Her story intrigued me and I bought her book. Jane has been in the food reviewing business with her husband for awhile- radio and Gourmet magazine. She found herself sitting in front of her TV, a real couch potato, afraid to move or go anywhere. Eventually Jane realized that she needed some expertise and assistance to help her through this period of anxiety and depression. Through a great deal of work and some pharmaceutical assitance Jane has learned to live through her depression. One outlet was to become an EMT- by helping others she is helping herself- she is less drawn to angst about her own issues. As a health care provider I can understand how you can become engrossed in other people's medical and emergency issues by helping them through this critical time, and how rewarding it is to know you were responsible for a litle piece of this person's care. Jane has also learned that she has to leave the dark, difficult emergency situations at the office, so to speak. She cannot dwell on those she cannot save or those stories too bleak to think about. This book conveys a story of depression that will be helpful to many- a method for surviving while helping others- that's what it is all about. pr
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