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Fixed that for ya.

I am just as concerned about this as the OP.. I am "green" as well. My problem is I do not have the option to work in the field before I get my paramedic. I got my basic certification and moved directly toward my paramedic classes (in class now). I am a single mom in a program that provides housing for single mothers as long as we are in college, kind of like a dorm. I do not feel I could make enough money to support my kids alone only having my basic cert. I am very worried about whether or not I will be good in the field, but I do have MANY hrs in clinicals from basic, which started last August, to Paramedic, which ends in December. The paramedics I "shadow" actually let me be lead on the calls now that I am done with Intermediate. I pray I am the best I can be but I know I will still have a lot to learn and only experience will teach me. I would have liked to work in the field before getting my Paramedic cert, but that was not in the cards. Is it possible to be a decent medic and not have the field experience?

Volunteer Ambulance Service are lacking Volunteers. They provide Ambulances in rural areas with no EMS or ALS or Hospital nearby. That being said, people volunteer spare time; not work, school, or family time. There are over 8700 hours in a year, I think you would be able to sacrifice some hours for them but not your life, as they have suggested.

You seem to have misunderstood Mr. Lincoln. Four hours spent practising carrying the axe around isn't the same as sharpening it. Congratulations on all your meaningless merit badges, but it seems that a couple of key points have escaped you. First, before you started taking advanced skills courses on the weekends, did it ever cross your mind that it might be a good idea to go to college and learn the foundations of human anatomy, physiology, psychology, and microbiology first? Oh that's right, us firemen don't need all that book learnin'. Just give me a needle, an ET tube, and a cookbook and I can save the world. The most significant reason that EMS is still living in 1972 is the fire service, and their self-centred refusal (and often a mental inability) to accept advanced educational qualifications. Instead we get a constant stream of excuses, attempting to justify maintaining the forty-year old status-quo. Medicine has evolved greatly in that time, but EMS is still doing things the way they've always done them. Yet, we sit around and complain that we don't get enough respect. The scary thing is that so many of can't figure out why. Oh well, the IAFF will fix it for us! And how can YOU expect to perform a surgical airway when you have never seriously studied human anatomy? Another example of the firemen ignoring the obvious realities. I guess reality isn't in the protocol book. News flash (sort of, actually it's been covered for 4 pages now): The original poster can NOT get experience. It is not an option for her. In fact, in the real world, most basics cannot obtain EMS experience, because there are simply no jobs for them. In better systems, basics are not even employed at all. It's been twenty-five years since I worked in an EMS system that hired basics. So what you are recommending is not only stupid, it’s just plain un-doable. I fail to see how encouraging the OP to do something that cannot be done is constructive. I dunno, maybe I learned that in college or something. Logic 101 FTW.