Why do paramedics wear sunglasses?

For the same reasons everyone else wears sunglasses…. to protect their eyes from the sun and glare so they can see! Thats pretty much it. No special reasoning. Now depending on how “paramilitary” their employer is, they may have restrictions to the syle of sunglasses (i.e. black fromes, black lenses, no rainbow colored mirrored sunglasses with neon frames), others don’t really care and you can wear your bright neon rainbow shades no problemo….I worked for a rather strict paramilitary minded city fire department (you were told at the first written test in the hiring process to go ahead and leave if you had ANY visible tatoos as that was strictly forbidden, as in automatic no appeal disqualification, could not get hired, and be terminated on the spot if you got a visible tat after being hired for example) as a single role EMT and they only begrudgingly tolerated sunglasses while driving, but even they understood that if you’re outside and can’t see what you’re doing with the patient, then you can’t do your job!

Now as far as clear lens safety glasses, most every service encourages their medics and EMTs to wear them on every call, some flat out mandate they be worn (with varying levels of enforcement). Those are straight up eye protection. When dealing with sick people, you don’t want them coughing/sneezing in your face….patients with altered levels of consiousness or straight up unresponsive people often vomit and can’t control themselves from coughing/gagging….you don’t want a splash of vomit landing in your eye…..or bits of blood, whether from starting an IV or the patient has an injury they’re bleeding from….and those are just the “nicer” bodily (and other) fluids and whatnot you might come into contact with on a daily basis that you wont want in your eyes. Sunglasses do double as safety glasses (literally the only difference is they’re tinted to provide an extra layer of protection, from the sun, that regular clear lens safety glasses don’t) so especially if you’re outside or otherwise dealing with a medic or EMT coming in from a bright spot it’s perfectly valid to leave their sunglasses on while they worry about more pressing matters of patient assessment and care.

But even in that case, the initial decission to wear the sunglasses is going to be for the exact same reasons anyone else would….it’s bright out! That’s it. Nothing fancy or special or obscure medical reason….simply they’re a normal human being that likes being able to see what they’re doing without being blinded by the Sun.