i have a question... Paramedic School Without Street Experience

fast65 said:
It seems that you're operating under the assumption that all programs that take people with no experience are those 6 month boot camp style medic mills. There are plenty of schools out there that turn out great medics that came in with no experience as an EMT, it's all about the program, NOT the experience that the student has.

Now, there's certainly some medics that went in with no experience that came out as cook book medics, but does that mean they'll never be good? Of course not, they just need to learn how to think outside the box, and I know that as a basic I had no idea how to think outside the box, things only started making sense and coming together as I started paramedic school. The medical field is dynamic, and because of that we as healthcare providers never stop learning, and the truth of the matter is that the learning process has only just begun as school has ended. Sure, those who come in with no experience might struggle a little at first, but dedication is infinitely more important than experience in my opinion, and as long as a new paramedic is dedicated to his/her profession, then most of the time they will undoubtedly become a great provider.
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I never said all of them because in fact it's not all. It's just most of the medics that i have worked with who are the cook book come out of that kind of program. There are other medics who didn't come out of those programs that are still cook book.
Yes they could change in the future. But for me and the patient it doesn't matter if he changes in the future. We are only concerned with right now in time. I don't know alot of stuff but it's not going to help my current patient if I learn them in the future. What matters is right now at this exact time.
 
firefite said:
I never said all of them because in fact it's not all. It's just most of the medics that i have worked with who are the cook book come out of that kind of program. There are other medics who didn't come out of those programs that are still cook book.
Yes they could change in the future. But for me and the patient it doesn't matter if he changes in the future. We are only concerned with right now in time. I don't know alot of stuff but it's not going to help my current patient if I learn them in the future. What matters is right now at this exact time.
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So a fresh paramedic should be perfect right out of the gates? Dully noted.
 
I'm excited to disprove the cookbook medic theory you have going here. I think it depends on the person not the school, or the experience.
 
NVRob said:
I'm excited to disprove the cookbook medic theory you have going here. I think it depends on the person not the school, or the experience.
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I agree with you 100%, the person is what makes the difference, not the amount of experience they have.
 
fast65 said:
So a fresh paramedic should be perfect right out of the gates? Dully noted.
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No. Think about it from your patients point of view. Let's say for example if I didn't know how to do CPR. Is it going to matter to the patient if I learn how to do CPR later in life? Odviously it's not going to matter because my patient didn't get CPR. In no way is me learning CPR in the future going to help this one patient. But it will help others. (I do know how to do CPR)
 
NVRob said:
I'm excited to disprove the cookbook medic theory you have going here. I think it depends on the person not the school, or the experience.
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Per my view point it depends on the person and the effort they put in.
 
One of the best paramedic programs in this state does not require experience to be considered and does not lead up to an associates degree so it's kind of silly to label providers coming from such programs as being any less qualified than those who attended programs that require x months of experience for admission. Competency should be judged on an individual basis.
 
Zodiac said:
One of the best paramedic programs in this state does not require experience to be considered and does not lead up to an associates degree so it's kind of silly to label providers coming from such programs as being any less qualified than those who attended programs that require x months of experience for admission. Competency should be judged on an individual basis.
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I never saw a post saying that they are less qualified if they came from xyz school and more qualified if they came from abc school lol
 
firefite said:
No. Think about it from your patients point of view. Let's say for example if I didn't know how to do CPR. Is it going to matter to the patient if I learn how to do CPR later in life? Odviously it's not going to matter because my patient didn't get CPR. In no way is me learning CPR in the future going to help this one patient. But it will help others. (I do know how to do CPR)
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You're making it out to seem like a paramedic with no experience isn't going to know how to do ANYTHING. Even a cookbook medic will be able to at least treat patients, even if they can't think outside of the box. Protocols are written for the lowest common denominator, that being a green medic with zero field experience in this case. I understand what you're saying, but I'm just saying that it's important to understand that no new medic coming right out of school, experience or not, will be perfect; they will make mistakes and they will learn from those mistakes to become a better medic, same goes for seasoned medics.
 
firefite said:
I never saw a post saying that they are less qualified if they came from xyz school and more qualified if they came from abc school lol
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I can see how he would interpret that from previous posts in this thread
 
fast65 said:
You're making it out to seem like a paramedic with no experience isn't going to know how to do ANYTHING. Even a cookbook medic will be able to at least treat patients, even if they can't think outside of the box. Protocols are written for the lowest common denominator, that being a green medic with zero field experience in this case. I understand what you're saying, but I'm just saying that it's important to understand that no new medic coming right out of school, experience or not, will be perfect; they will make mistakes and they will learn from those mistakes to become a better medic, same goes for seasoned medics.
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Lol. Yes I agree. No one is perfect and never will be. I was basing everything off of how I have seen it in my area. I have no evidence saying one is better then the other. It's hard if not impossible to have a good disagreement with ones opinions. For example alot of medics think fire medics are bad. That's their opinion from what they have seen. I have known good and bad fire medics. But that doesn't mean that all fire medics are bad.
 
Where Im taking my classes at... They required me to take the A&P course as a pre-rec for my Paramedic course.
And, we also had to have 6 months of experience of SOME sort... This includes Volunteer time, which was what i did to get my 6 months.
 
fast65 said:
I can see how he would interpret that from previous posts in this thread
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I know. I was just pointing out how it hasn't actually been said and that I didn't mean for my posts to be understood that way.
 
firefite said:
I know. I was just pointing out how it hasn't actually been said and that I didn't mean for my posts to be understood that way.
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I didn't mean to imply that it was only your posts, there were of course others with that tone as well.
 
fast65 said:
I didn't mean to imply that it was only your posts, there were of course others with that tone as well.
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Don't worry about it lol. I didn't mean for my posts to sound like that because I strongly disagree with that.
 
Aidey said:
You do not have to be a CNA to be a Nurse. Pre-med has nothing to do with patient care unless you happen to volunteer somewhere or get some sort of healthcare job.
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Zodiac said:
I don't know of any RN/BSNs who worked for any length of time as a CNA before getting their nursing license.
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I would imagine that they're not put in a classroom environment first and then dropped into a field training environment where they're suddenly faced with a very steep learning curve and a short time-span to learn the basics of being a provider at that level... I would suspect that they're given a certain amount of education and trained gradually with increasing expectation and responsibility throughout the entire program.

I'd imagine that Physicians are generally brought up in a relatively similar manner. They get some didactic stuff first and are gradually introduced to their responsibilities.

Heck, even Jedi don't normally just spend a few hours with Yoda and suddenly are deemed worthy... (Luke was the exception) they're supposed to be trained from almost birth and takes what, 15-19 years to become a Jedi Knight?

If a zero-to-hero Paramedic program was built along the same lines, by the end of the program, the resulting Paramedics could be as "good" as any other graduate from any other good program.

Of course the downside of any zero-to-hero program is that the students might just find out too late that they really don't like that profession...
 
Akulahawk said:
I would imagine that they're not put in a classroom environment first and then dropped into a field training environment where they're suddenly faced with a very steep learning curve and a short time-span to learn the basics of being a provider at that level...
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Wouldn't this indicate that requiring field experience is a band aid on an arterial bleed? Wouldn't repairing the bleed be more important than placing a band aid?
I'd imagine that Physicians are generally brought up in a relatively similar manner. They get some didactic stuff first and are gradually introduced to their responsibilities.
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While in a few months I can comment on the steepness of the learning curve and all, I would note that medical school often goes from full time diadactics to full time clinical experience (clerkships). EMS education is rarely full time in comparison to medical school.
 
JPINFV said:
Wouldn't this indicate that requiring field experience is a band aid on an arterial bleed? Wouldn't repairing the bleed be more important than placing a band aid?
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I don't know, it depends how big the band aid is...
 
JPINFV said:
Wouldn't this indicate that requiring field experience is a band aid on an arterial bleed? Wouldn't repairing the bleed be more important than placing a band aid?

While in a few months I can comment on the steepness of the learning curve and all, I would note that medical school often goes from full time diadactics to full time clinical experience (clerkships). EMS education is rarely full time in comparison to medical school.
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First off, that's exactly what I'm saying. A well-designed zero-to-hero program will turn out good, competent providers that won't need any experience going into the program.

The comparison to full-time medical school to an EMS program is not the analogy. What I was getting at is that I imagine that you won't be suddenly dropped into a Neurosurgeon residency program and expected to perform safely without having gone through your clerkships and your general surgery residency first. Or am I wrong? I was under the impression that Physicians were brought up in their training with progressively greater and greater responsibility and skills... I was also under the impression that you did get standardized patients (and therefore have some "basic" training) even during your didactic time that should allow you to not be completely clueless in how to do exams during your clerkships? Or was my reading skills deficient?
 
OP- who cares, judging by your avatar you only want to work in the FD. So just go spend $10k at NCTI and get your p card. Meanwhile go work in the construction industury you will make more money than an ambulance job and learn more applicable skills than some ambulance profession
 
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