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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: 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
Rating:
Summary: Jane Stern - Write Another One!
Review: I loved this book.
It made me laugh a lot.
It was so honest and so very funny.
I recommend it to everyone.
Rating:
Summary: Great read!
Review: Jane Stern has done a great job of crafting a book that pulls you in right from the start. "How I saved myself by becoming an EMT" in an appropriate subtitle for this book.
Suffering from depression and just about every fear that you can imagine, Jane decided to join the fire department as an EMT, a move that is completely out of character for her...and in doing so, brings us along for the heartwarming and hilarious journey.
This book made me laugh out loud and cheer inwardly...I appreciated her honesty and her humor...sometimes it is the only way to deal with a grave situation.
Overcoming her fears and helping others through her training allows Jane to cast off the costume of a fearful middle-aged woman- and instead don the jumpsuit of an EMT, "Ambulance Girl."
This is an inspiring story, not only for those that live and work in the medical world, but for those that are afraid to try something new or fearful of the unknown. Jane Stern overcame her fears, and in doing so has given us a priceless gem of honesty and insight...imagine what other stories are out there waiting to be told...perhaps you or I will be the ones to tell them....
Rating:
Summary: Great read!
Review: Jane Stern has done a great job of crafting a book that pulls you in right from the start. "How I saved myself by becoming an EMT" in an appropriate subtitle for this book.
Suffering from depression and just about every fear that you can imagine, Jane decided to join the fire department as an EMT, a move that is completely out of character for her...and in doing so, brings us along for the heartwarming and hilarious journey.
This book made me laugh out loud and cheer inwardly...I appreciated her honesty and her humor...sometimes it is the only way to deal with a grave situation.
Overcoming her fears and helping others through her training allows Jane to cast off the costume of a fearful middle-aged woman- and instead don the jumpsuit of an EMT, "Ambulance Girl."
This is an inspiring story, not only for those that live and work in the medical world, but for those that are afraid to try something new or fearful of the unknown. Jane Stern overcame her fears, and in doing so has given us a priceless gem of honesty and insight...imagine what other stories are out there waiting to be told...perhaps you or I will be the ones to tell them....
Rating: 
Summary: Funny? Or uneducated?
Review: Jane Stern's writing is witty, descriptive and informative. However, I was surprised that she would continually use such crude terms for bodily parts and functions. Was it an attempt at humor? I don't know. I found it extremely offensive. It made an intelligent woman appear as an uneducated one.
Rating: 
Summary: Quick and Light
Review: Quick and entertaining memoir of one woman's journey from isolation and agoraphobia to becoming a trained EMT and loving it. The book mainly centers on this theme, but also talks about marital problems, terrorism and parental abuse. Stern finally feels comfortable with life when, at the end of the book, she is given a position of prestiege at the firehouse where she is based. Nice, light and upbeat.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not quite what I was expecting
Review: This is an autobiographical story of Stern's experiences as an EMT, and is heavily filtered through the lens of her emotional baggage. As a former EMT, I was expecting to find a lot of common ground in this book, and was somewhat surprised at how little I found. Sure, the job is basically the same, and some of her calls are earily similar to some of mine, but her point of view is very different from mine. This isn't a bad thing, though, as it was a good reminder that individuals are unique, and that their stories, however similar, are also unique.
While this book does give some insight into the life of a volunteer EMT, I would caution readers not to assume that Stern's experiences are typical. This is also a good story about personal growth and one person's struggle with her demons. In many ways, these are the book's greatest strengths.
One final point...while the use of the coarse language certainly is an accurate depiction of how firefighters and EMTs talk, here it came across as gratuitous. Some readers might find it offensive, and its use doesn't seem serve the story.
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Summary: Laughing out Loud!
Review: This was one of the funniest books I have ever read. Jane's self depricating sense of humor and her honesty about her hang-ups will keep you chuckling all the way through. What's a nice girl like Jane doing in an ambulance? Learning to face her fears and balance her life from the isolation she experienced as a writer. Her hilarious thoughts and experiences while fumbling through EMT school will amuse you and make people around you wonder what you are laughing about! I love her style of writing and would read another of her books in a minute except I think they are all cooking books and I don't cook. I highly recommend this book for a quick weekend read.
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