Traveling to help people

[Bubba12253]

Hey, I was wondering has anyone traveled as an EMT and helped people? I'll get certified by the end of August and I'm looking for programs, hopefully ones you can vouch for or someone you know can, to travel to a place and help out?

I'd eventually like to do a long term one over next summer.


Thanks for the help!!

 

[Chimpie]

Hey, I was wondering has anyone traveled as an EMT and helped people? I'll get certified by the end of August and I'm looking for programs, hopefully ones you can vouch for or someone you know can, to travel to a place and help out?

I'd eventually like to do a long term one over next summer.


Thanks for the help!!

Traveled where?

 

[Veneficus]

As an EMT the opportunities are extremely limited.

A basic EMT has almost no use at all in an austere environment.

If traveling around the world helping people is your thing, the degree you need is "doctor."

US EMS has lower requirements than the rest of the world and as an EMT or paramedic, when "transport" to definitive care is not an option, you have no skill or scope that helps at all.

 

[Bubba12253]

I know the degree I need is a primary or secondary level provider, I'm pre-med. I'm looking to grab a little bit or experience before I go to graduate/medical school.

And despite EMT-B's being limited, our help has to be needed somewhere, we're more versed than say a volunteer.

 

[Veneficus]

I know the degree I need is a primary or secondary level provider, I'm pre-med. I'm looking to grab a little bit or experience before I go to graduate/medical school.

And despite EMT-B's being limited, our help has to be needed somewhere, we're more versed than say a volunteer.

No you are not, your entire education and treatments are based around common acute illness with temporizing measures while transporting to definitive care.

Volunteers with skills like water purification, crop rotation, etc are of considerably more use in an austere environment.

Higher trained professionals like midwives are also a lot more useful.

High flow o2, backboarding, applying traction splints, manually ventilating a patient, etc are of absolutely no use in an austere environment that will not have evacuation as an option.

Most of the medical needs revolve around public health, chronic illness, and injury rehab. Without the benefit of definitive or curative intervention.

Telling somebody they need to go to the hospital is pointless. People with lifethreatening acute pathology are likely going to die from it.

It is a different world. While people with other skill sets may also be EMTs and bring benefit, the education and skills of an EMT alone are not valuable enough to justify the resources they use and require.

 

[Bosco836]

Hey, I was wondering has anyone traveled as an EMT and helped people? I'll get certified by the end of August and I'm looking for programs, hopefully ones you can vouch for or someone you know can, to travel to a place and help out?

I'd eventually like to do a long term one over next summer.


Thanks for the help!!

You may want to check out http://www.globalmedic.ca/

 

[mycrofft]

Try the following:
1. Local county clinics.
2. Red Cross
3. Churches with medical missions.

The adventure maybe seem alluring, but what you need is a good grounding in basic medicine, how to work with patients, how to fit into a medical treatment organization. Do some local work . Then go do some rope-swinging, vine-climbing, snake-eating stuff if that (austere conditions) is what you want after all.

 

[Tigger]

No you are not, your entire education and treatments are based around common acute illness with temporizing measures while transporting to definitive care.

Volunteers with skills like water purification, crop rotation, etc are of considerably more use in an austere environment.

Higher trained professionals like midwives are also a lot more useful.

High flow o2, backboarding, applying traction splints, manually ventilating a patient, etc are of absolutely no use in an austere environment that will not have evacuation as an option.

Most of the medical needs revolve around public health, chronic illness, and injury rehab. Without the benefit of definitive or curative intervention.

Telling somebody they need to go to the hospital is pointless. People with lifethreatening acute pathology are likely going to die from it.

It is a different world. While people with other skill sets may also be EMTs and bring benefit, the education and skills of an EMT alone are not valuable enough to justify the resources they use and require.

I don't know how to represent that I agree with this statement as much as I do.

OP, there are certainly plenty of volunteer organizations that do work at clinics in the developing world, however most of them don't care what if your an EMT because let us both be real for a second, EMT is 120-140 hours. The material taught in that class is barely applicable to quality prehospital care delivery in this country, making it downright useless in a developing country. There are plenty of groups looking for volunteers to help operate clinics, but they want bodies willing to help and will likely use you in the same capacity as the other un-trained volunteers, to preform low-level medical tasks in a clinic setting.