New Mexico High School Produces Career Ready EMTs

[spenac]

Sounds like they are higher educated than most EMT's, sadly more than some paramedics as well as far as base courses.

"The four-year program starts at in ninth grade with an introduction into health careers, said Holly Bird, mentor for the program. The students get to hear from various health professionals about what kinds of careers are available to them. As sophomores, the students learn CPR and first aid.

At the junior level, the path takes the health sciences students into college-level credits for classes like applied human biology, Bird said.

As seniors, students get into medical technology and are trained and certified as emergency medical technicians."

[web:4152cd848e]http://www.emsresponder.com/web/online/Careers-and-Staffing-/New-Mexico-High-School-Produces-Career-Ready-EMTs/6$7943[/web:4152cd848e]

http://www.emsresponder.com/web/online/Car...ady-EMTs/6$7943

[medic5740]

This is a terrific idea! The healthcare professions should be jumping up and down with excitement because this will excite high school students about health careers. Having done something similar in this very rural area which required every tenth grade student to take a medical first responder program without certification, the number of graduates from our high school going into health related careers grew exponentially. Some went into nursing, some went into pharmacology and radiology, some into PA school, and some even continued in EMS, but this exposure gave them a good idea of some of the options in healthcare. I would be more interested in hearing about those who went on into other healthcare fields and not just those who continued in EMS.

[Chief1C]

If everyone under 25 was forbidden from EMS, many systems would have some serious staffing issues. While I would give a 16 or 17 y/o EMT a chance, I think that's too young. I had to take a CPR course in high school, twice, to graduate. It's a requirement, as part of the local physical education curriculum. I would highly recommend that every man, woman and child take a CPR course, and at least standard first aid; so they could render proper aid if necessary.

Local "Fireman's Relief" organizations offer the EMT Basic course for free, to high school aged, children. Very, very few take advantage of it.. and those that do, even fewer stick around to use their skills.

[lemming12]

This is similar to how i started. I am from Las Cruces, NM which is about 1 hr southwest of Alamogordo. In Las Cruces, public high schools have AP courses, which allow you to earn college credit from a class you take in high school. At the time there was one biology teacher who had several classes to allow juniors and seniors to begin in the health field; health and nutrition classes, anatomy and physiology, medical terminology, first responder, and a health club that got to go on field trips to Albuquerque and see the cadaver labs. I took several AP classes, and my senior year i needed one credit to graduate, but to even out my schedule, i needed to take two classes, so i took my AP European History and the first responder course. I finished my first responder course and the spring semester of my senior year i took my EMT Basic course at the local college (the public schools also have a program where you can take college classes for free while still in high school). Before i turned 19 i was a licensed EMT Basic starting college.

Unfortunately at the same time that instructor died of severe cancer and the classes were discontinued. now the staff of the college EMS program rotate one semester to every high school to do first responder classes.

But it was a great way to get people involved. In NM if you are under the age of 18 you have to be affiliated with a service to get an endorsement to sit for licensing session. So these young students were all also becoming volunteer firefighters so they could be licensed, then their departments were sponsoring them through their intermediates as well. So it has been progressively introducing some young blood into the system. Excellent. Since young high school and college students can afford the health and time to do things like volunteer. And by the time the get out of school they're so hooked they wouldn't be able to leave if they wanted to!