More was he being unreasonable

[Ilovemyself]

Had to call an ambulance for my wife at 4.30 this morning. The first responder was very good and called her by her name.

The paramedic crewed ambulance that turned up to take her hospital were nice enough but one of the paramedics kept calling her mate.

I have no problem with it and tbh, she was in so much pain he could have called her anything and she wouldn't have cared. I do wonder though if some people would feel this wasn't professional.

Was he being unreasonable?

I would quite like it.
My MIL, on the other hand, would prefer to be called mrs. *
I can't understand that personally.

In this neck of the woods women are often called Hen... Hope your wife is OK

No he wasn't , he was trying to reassure and calm by using an everyday colloquialism that most people would recognise .

I hope your wife recovers soon

when I was ambulanced to hospital over a pregnancy, the doctor who found me and called for it didn't even talk to me. I was terrified.

For those that asked, she will be in for a few days as the antibiotics she is on can only be be administered in hospital. Then at least 6 weeks to the op on rest.

I just wish wish they old sort the pain quicker

Hope your wife is feeling better soon - I have known three people with this, and the pain is unbelievable (my friend said that childbirth was a doddle in comparison, which freaked me out considerably..!). They've all had the op and gone on to make good recoveries, so hope this is the case for your wife...

P.S. Yes, it's Schrodinger's cat

I've never called anyone love or mate in my life, but don't mind at all if others use it to me. As long as they do a good job then they could call me anything they like and I would be very, very grateful that they were there.

So on that basis the paramedic was NBU.

Glad she's recovering OK.

I don't think he was being at all unreasonable to call her mate BTW. Healthcare professionals meet a lot of people in a short space of time and it can be difficult to remember names, when clinical information is more important. I do this all the time in my job...as long as you make a good connection with your patient then friendly greetings are fine!

Suedoku. She said the same-100 times worse than childbirth! ( not that I will ever know!)

Glad to know everyone felt the same as me. Guess it is just your average DM reader that would be "outraged"

I think it depends...both on the patient and the paramedic. Some people are very clear about how they prefer to be addressed, some prefer formality, some prefer a less formal manner. Equally, there are some people from whom you can accept something like 'mate' or 'sweetheart' because it's just their way, from others it's just patronising (even if unintentionally so).

One of the nicest paramedics who treated me called me honey - I was 14 at the time, he was easily old enough to be my father and the term was just so natural (he clearly used it often) that it felt really reassuring and made it easy to trust him.

I think mate is fine, given that the ambulance crew must see so many people, and have a lot of other detail to process at the same time - better to be called mate than by the wrong name, or by one of the various endearments that some people might find gender offensive like love or sweetheart. Thinking about it, if someone was doing something quite medically intimate to me, Miss Daal would feel ridiculously formal, and Sophie would feel slightly too familiar, so on balance mate is a good halfway house of friendliness and reassurance.