I've never heard of a policy like that for physicians and doubt it's common for paramedics. I work in an ICU and a typical day involves a death or resuscitation. We would run out of staff with that policy.
Maybe it's different in the US where ambulances cost money, but here in Germany the typical paramedic will see a wide variety of cases, with the vast majority of patients surviving the encounter. Giving your paramedic a day off after witnessing a death wouldn't break the bank. In the ICU or emergency room it would be a different story.
Ambulances cost money everywhere, it's just a matter of who is paying. Do we think paramedics in Germany are more susceptible to PTSD when patients die than ICU or ER staff, or paramedics anywhere?
Not in the sense that matters here: the caller doesn't pay (unless the call is frivolous), leading to more calls that are preemptive, overly cautious or for non-live-threatening cases. That behind the scenes people and equipment are paid for and a whole structure to do that exists isn't really relevant here
> Do we think paramedics in Germany are more susceptible to PTSD
No, we think that there are far more paramedics than ICU or ER staff, and helping them in small ways is pretty easy. For ICU and ER staff you would obviously need other measures, like staffing those places with people less likely to get PTSD or giving them regular counseling by a staff therapist (I don't know how this is actually handled, just that the problem is very different than the issue of paramedics)
I might have misremembered that, but remember hearing the story. Now that I think about it I think that policy was applied only after unsuccessful CPR attempts.
