MemphisE34a

Does that mean I am not going to make the EMTcity christmas card list?

I can't speak for everywhere, but the places I have been fire based paramedics receive the highest pay, receive the most benefits, and have the best working conditions. For the 3rd or 4th time, if sitting in an ambulance at the 7-11 waiting on a call for $10 an hour or being staged at an ER where you perform other duties until there is a call is a progressive service, you can have it. If there were enough people that felt the same way you do, EMS would already be everything you aspire it to be. What kind of service do you think would be the absolute best? Private, government based? What kind do you work for?

And you have forgotten the value of good BASIC skills, without which you CANNOT be a good paramedic.

I don't. You put quite a spin on it. First of all, my panties are not in a wad and you speculate and twist my posts. I have told you I am not against EMS fire based or otherwise. I have told you that the paramedics under my command are happy and ASKED to be here. They are free to go anytime they feel mistreated. I am not holding any paramedics hostage. I agree with your jumping off the bridge approach, but my question is with SO many fire departments providing EMS is it really that bad? How many single function EMS departments have the exact same problems with the same kind of "sub par" employees you describe? Finally, falling into what trap? Have failed how? These are only your opinions. You cannot say that a seperate service here would offer any better medical care. You would more than likely end up with the same employees. I understand and respect your opinion that fire based EMS is not as good as a EMS only service, but thats all you have, your opinion. I will give you this - Ventmedic, DustDevil, yourself and others are obviously passionate about your opinions as they pertain to your job. That almost always means that you will perform well at it and normally better than those that lack that passion. At least we all care in our own way about our work place. After 13 pages, maybe we can all agree to disagree.

I have said alot through this thread, but I would challenge you to find quotes anywhere close to what you eluded to in the post above. As I have said all along, you don't know me, my department, or how we operate. You have run out of steam for your arguments and now resort to assumptions and personal attacks and claim to be the professional one, yet I don't have to apologize for anything. We are not the only one with fire based EMS you know. I guess everyone here and in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Birmingham, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and nearly every other major fire department have it all wrong!!

No. Its not another piece of fire equipment put in service. Paramedics normally ride on an ALS piece or on an ambulance. If numbers are high - not normally - they can ride as a firefighter on a piece that is not normally ALS. Every piece we have is fully staffed everyday - 57 engines, 28 trucks, 3 heavy rescues, and 33 ambulances. As I said, you can't say which one they are first, they are capable of riding in either capacity but they are normally on an ambulance for at least 12 hours every day they are at work.

We have 300 paramedics, most of which are members of the IAFF. You think that their salaries and benefits are not negotiated through our local? What about all the other fire based EMS employees? You think that as a general rule they are paid more and have better benefits just because? As I have already stated, if sitting in ambulance at the local 7-11 waiting for your next call at $10 an hour is progression in the mobile emergency room pre-hospital based medical profession, some of you are much more delusional that I opriginally thought.

I respectfully degree. You exclude me from the EMS profession because you disagree with the manor in which it is implemented here, through the fire service. I have in fact been in the fire service for 20 years most of it as EMT and the last 3 or 4 as an EMT-IV - which I didn't have to get by the way, but because I wanted to be able to offer a higher level of service and be more able to help the paramedics I work with. I think I am entilted to an opinion even without this fact, you just don't agree with it so you would rather call it unimformed or ignorant. Every fire department I have been involved with a paid member or volunteer has also handled EMS emergency transport. This has ranged from a single station department to the one where I currently work now which has 57. If the police officer is an EMT, you should consider his opinion. But again, he is not in "your profession" so you yourself proclaim you would blow him off and also consider him unimformed and ignorant. And finally, I honestly don;t care how you feel of me, my department, or fire based EMS. If you review all of the posts, I only asked for the same in return. This entire thread and following conundrum is being debated mostly by people who have no idea and will never be affecteby anything the Memphis Fire Department does. I would also ask this: Name a larger organization than the IAFF that has done more for EMS employees as it pertains to salary or benefits. It all boils down to this:

I think I just figured this out..........are you dating Ventmedic? Once again you are wrong. Its not that I have no respect for EMS. I just don't buy into your Jr. Doctors running around in mobile emergency room theories. Hence the Mythbusters quote. You are actually a paramedic riding around in an ambulance. Not that there is anything wrong with that and it is not disrespectful, just a fact - which is why this ......................... is not being censored by the moderators.

Everyone is entiled to their opinion. You state yours much more compassionatly that quoting a Bill Engvall comedy line. There is nothing funny about this situation.

This reminds me of my favorite quote from Mythbusters: "I reject your reality and subsitutue it with my own."

I think pertaining to this we are both right. I whole heartedly understand your point. It is my point however that going on medical calls and car wrecks on a piece of fire apparatus IS part of the job of a firefighter. For that we are not paid anythign extra, it is as you pointed out already part of our negotiated salary. When a firefighter is detailed to work a shift on an amubulance he is paid extra. Point being that a firefighter with 20 years on the job who is not required to be an EMT is paid the same thing as a firefighter with 5 years on the job that is required to be an EMT. There is no salary adjustments for being an EMT in that regard.

Like I said, you make up want you want to believe. What I stated was that I can generally with a good level of accuracy call ALS or BLS from the house, which is why I am sure you haven't found the exact quote as you have so many times before.

Ha. Another one of you wonderful assumptions. I cover medical calls over about 1.5 square miles. The population consists of 99% poor, black people. The other 1% consists moslt of hispanics and the handful of white people that live in our territory who have been there so long they can't afford to move out. Therefore, I am not judging anyone by any of the demographics you describe, they are all equally poor, deprived, and challenged. Again, you read a newspaper article. I work here. I am aware of what the issues are. The problem here was hiring a "diverse" pool of paramedic applicants. I can assure you that none of the 3 paramedics assigned to me sent you anything. Even if they had, I would not retaliate against them or anyone else for having an opinion.