Going off topic (kinda) briefly, did you get your degree at Edith Cowan. I have strongly considered moving back to Australia for a little while to get my BSc in Paramedical science. Do you know how much of the 3 years of school I could get out of because im already a paramedic? Or am I better off waiting till St John's starts recruiting paramedics and then somehow complete my degree while working?
I emailed ECU twice now but they haven't been extraordinarily helpful.
Also, isn't ICP or MICA strictly post-grad stuff? Or do you learn most of what you need in your BSc?
Sorry, didn't see this for a while. Yep, I went through ECU for my degree, as the choice was ECU or ECU. As afar as getting advanced standings for units, you need to have the certificates for units you have done, and what was covered, which can then be cross checked. ECU won't just give you a degree though, even if you have covered everything. I know of someone who had advanced standing for everything, and was told they needed to do 8 units so that ECU received enough money to hand out a degree. Not unreasonable, but not 'fair' to the wallet.
Also, you can now do your degree through Curtin, as St John have now switched all their students over to them. You can still go through ECU, but I wouldn't.
From my limited understanding of national competencies, we do 12 leads (or at least we will soon), intubation, fentanyl, ketamine, surgical cryc, and possibly some other things which a standard paramedic doesn't. In saying that, we don't do pacing, chemical or electrical cardio version, blood gases, catheters, or other advanced skills, so we aren't true ALS or MICA either. Depending on your point of view, we are either super paramedics, or stunted ALS crews.
