EMTs and Paramedics: What would you change?

HunterTMars

HunterTMars

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In 10 words or less, if you could change one thing about the way EMS operates in your system what would that one thing be?
 
CCCSD said:
Require EMTS to have at LEAST two years of full time experience before getting into paramedic school.
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I've said this for years.. totally agree.
 
mgr22 said:
The system's imperfect; do your job anyway.
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Want to make sure I'm getting this right: Are you saying that the one thing you would change would be for people to accept EMS, in all of it's imperfections and commit to doing a good job anyway? Or are you implying futility and suggesting that this isn't a question worth asking, just accept EMS as it is and move on?
 
NateJack745 said:
Want to make sure I'm getting this right: Are you saying that the one thing you would change would be for people to accept EMS, in all of it's imperfections and commit to doing a good job anyway? Or are you implying futility and suggesting that this isn't a question worth asking, just accept EMS as it is and move on?
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You said 10 words or less, right? If it helps, I'm not implying anything.
 
No fire.
 
NateJack745 said:
I've said this for years.. totally agree.
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Do not agree. Never have agreed with this. Each person is different. I’ve known people who’ve gone directly from zero to hero and done very well. Others who should have never become paramedics. You can’t assign a arbitrary “2 years” and have it mean anything.

I do believe they should have enough experience so they can function as a competent EMT. But, two years? Nope.
 
True Nomad...I was gonna say something similar but did not want to derail thread too much. I was EMT at age 18, enrolled in Paramedic 3 months later, became a Paramedic age 19.
 
And we can point to the huge number of shake and bake EMTs paramedics who have no concept of illness or patient care. But then why not just remove EMT from the system and make everyone a paramedic..?
 
I’d agree that perhaps 6 months or so of feeling out the job (as it stands now) is reasonable.

I’d also agree that everyone’s comfort level is different in terms of feeling ready to tackle paramedic school.

Years-wise regarding experience seems a bit arbitrary. For me it was almost 5, for others it’s instantaneous. I don’t think either defines the clinician to be. That’s mostly determined by the individual’s morals, values, and characteristics.

As far as the thread topic: Accepting safety stand downs company-wide, not just divisional.

Ha! Made it under ten words.
 
NomadicMedic said:
Do not agree. Never have agreed with this. Each person is different. I’ve known people who’ve gone directly from zero to hero and done very well. Others who should have never become paramedics. You can’t assign a arbitrary “2 years” and have it mean anything.

I do believe they should have enough experience so they can function as a competent EMT. But, two years? Nope.
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I have definitely noticed zero to hero's doing well, but in our system they are by far the outliers. I also tend to wonder if one of the unintended consequences of not requiring some minimum experience level is decreased career longevity.
 
akflightmedic said:
True Nomad...I was gonna say something similar but did not want to derail thread too much. I was EMT at age 18, enrolled in Paramedic 3 months later, became a Paramedic age 19.
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I've known some excellent providers who have become Paramedics at a very young age.
 
CCCSD said:
And we can point to the huge number of shake and bake EMTs paramedics who have no concept of illness or patient care. But then why not just remove EMT from the system and make everyone a paramedic..?
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There are 3 types of EMS providers: Dumb providers, Smart Providers and Brilliant Providers. Dumb providers never learn from their mistakes. Smart providers learn from their mistakes but brilliant providers learn from other peoples mistakes. I worked as an EMT for 4 years before going to Paramedic school and one of the biggest benefits was to watch Paramedics do the job both correctly and incorrectly.
 
VentMonkey said:
I’d agree that perhaps 6 months or so of feeling out the job (as it stands now) is reasonable.

I’d also agree that everyone’s comfort level is different in terms of feeling ready to tackle paramedic school.

Years-wise regarding experience seems a bit arbitrary. For me it was almost 5, for others it’s instantaneous. I don’t think either defines the clinician to be. That’s mostly determined by the individual’s morals, values, and characteristics.

As far as the thread topic: Accepting safety stand downs company-wide, not just divisional.

Ha! Made it under ten words.
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I like your sentiment regarding company wide safety. And you're totally right; how do you measure experience? If you work in a system where you treat or transport to 1-2 pts every 48 hours, in theory you may treat only 104 patients in a year. In a busy system it is not unusual to see providers respond to 1000-1200 calls in a year. It would take almost 10 years for the provider in the slow system to have the same number of patient encounters that the other provider obtains in just a year. It's very difficult to measure. Maybe taking a standardized approach to vetting experience or even aptitude (if we want to throw experience requirements out the window) would be helpful?
 
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