How important is experience in EMS?

[DrParasite]

simple question: how important is experience in EMS?

and how does experience and education compare? can one be used as a substitute for lacking the other?

 

[325Medic]

Good question. I have 13 years in P.A. as a medic. I have seen 20+ year medics that were total toolbags when it came to medicine and have also seen 2 year medics that I would let treat my mom. We have all seen really good students / medic interns that had book knowledge and were lost on the squad. We have also seen C-students in school do extremely well on the squad. I think follow on education and constant learning is a important thing when it comes to keeping sharp. So, my answer is. I don't know. I do think experience is gained on the street but at the expense of bad habits. I also think we gain spidy senses that new medics / EMT's may not have right out of school.

325.

 

[NYMedic828]

In my opinion, in EMS, if you don't "get it" after a year in a busy area, than you just aren't going to be any good at it.

The most important thing in EMS, is self education and ambition. The service is not going to do a damn thing to help make you better. They just want to make dollar signs. You have to do it yourself. Those who do, become competent those who don't, remain worthless like 90% of EMS.

 

[firetender]

Education provides you the foundational information you need to know to begin performing.

Experience is what is used to make sure that education progresses.

It's a hand-in-hand thing.

The way the system works now, before you begin performing, you get educated. Once you get experienced you learn how what you were taught misses the mark. Hopefully that info gets fed back into the educational system.

The place where education fails is it usually takes years for that loop to be closed, meaning that, in the field, your experience of HOW to use that education makes book learning valuable as reference and checks and balances.

 

[medicsb]

They're both equally important. One without the other is useless. EMS greatly undervalues experience (hence, "all-ALS" systems, etc.)

 

[AeroClinician]

After seeing a number of 20+ year medics that I would'nt let touch me with a stick if I was sick. It is my utmost belief that while education isn't everything, the number of years under a paramedic's belt is an unreliable indicator of how good or bad a paramedic is. Sometimes a medic will get a number of years on and then become very lazy, complacent, ect. Stop taking B/Ps and guessing B/Ps from across the room. Falsifying assements that were never actualy completed. Talking pt.s out of going to the hospital with a medical complaint, again lazyness. Stop administering morphine due to lazyness.

It takes discipline to not become complacent.

 

[Jambi]

I belive education is far more important than experience.

I offer up every other medical related profession as proof.

 

[bigbaldguy]

I belive education is far more important than experience.

I offer up every other medical related profession as proof.

Reminds me of the saying "for success in life find a young doctor and an old lawyer".

That said I think I'd rather have a doctor with too little education and enough experience to realize it than a genius who hasn't been around long enough to have been humbled a few times.