first responders or emts

[wildfire66]

i dont think fire departments should require firefighters to be emts and they should allow them to be first responders if they choose. because they didnt become a firefighter to become a emt

[Chief1C]

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[letmesleep]

My question to you is this then, What is wrong with getting an EMT license and better serving the community? What is wrong with getting more educated, and being more of a help to the EMS system your FD is riding the coat tails of (to increase their call volume, and increase grant money)? Do you have an issue with getting up at 3am to help lift a 600lb PT, because that "first responder" cert isn't going to change that at all!

[Kaisu]

Why do I have to be a firefighter in some communities if I want to deliver medical care to patients ? I don't give two hoots about dragging hoses and putting water on fires. I am a paramedic. I don't need a ladder truck to care for and transport the heart pain patient. Why do I need a fire cert to be able to be a health care provider?

[JakeEMTP]

OP, you will not find to many here at EMTcity that would disagree with you. If you could just convince your union and your dept. of this, all will be good in the world of pre-hospital medical care.

[letmesleep]

Kaisu, That wasn't pointed at you. I am just wondering why FFs have such an adversity to furthering their knowledge when it comes to EMS calls. If their FD wants them to have an EMT license, then why not? They go on EMS calls, and most of the time WE as health care providers can't stand them being around other than helping carry equipment. I too am a paramedic, and also have NOOOO desire to pull a hose. My question was to the OP who seems to have a problem with being an EMT or at least required to get an EMT license.

sorry for any confusion!

[Just Plain Ruff]

Wildfire, can I ask you a question, can you put together a sensible question. Each of the past 4 posts by you have been poorly thought out poorly worded questions frought with spelling and grammatical errors.

Come on, you can do better than this stuff.

[Kaisu]

No offense or confusion here letmesleep. The OP obviously doesn't understand that firefighting is not a full time job and something needs to be done to fill the time. (and justify the budgets.)

I did not think you were directing anything controversial towards my post. Cheers

[toutdoors]

Wildfire, why in the world would you want to have firefighters be first responders instead of EMTs? I don't understand it. Now I know there will be a lot of backlash from the non fire service folks here, but that is ok. The truth of the matter is that fire departments provide some level of EMS to alot of communities. Why then would you want just a first responder to go on these calls? If your department answers EMS alarms, then you OWE it to your patients to be as prepared as possible to deal with their sickness or injury. I truly feel the best way to begin this treatment of the sick or injuried person is to have (at the minimum) your EMT. I was a first responder "back in the day" when I was volunteer. Then again, we only answered fire or MVA's and that was just for extrication. The EMT's were seperate from us, and they did pt care.

First responder, in my opinion, is not much in regards to knowledge or training. Not to mention no clinical time, at least I did not have any. At least in the EMT you do some, but not nearly enough, clinical and or field rotation to achieve some pt contacts. I also think EMT should require at least 100 hours of clinical/field time to generate more patient contacts and build some sort of knowledge base to assess a pt.

We provide a BLS non transport service to our community, and are tiered with an ALS transport service. It works pretty good here. Good relations on the personal side between fire and medics, alot of us work the transport side on our days off.

I think that anyone who will actively take part in patient care needs to be at the EMT level at a minimum. Like I said, you owe it to the people you will serve. They deserve the best care possible, ideally this would be paramedic. As much as the non fire service folks are gonna drill me on this next comment, I will still make it. If you want to be a firefighter, you need to WANT to be an EMT as well. (At the very least an EMT) It is the trend that is upon the fire service. I am sorry if I offend you, but you are not going to spend as much time answering fire alarms as you will answering EMS alarms. With that being the case, you should want to be an EMT, because if you have no desire to be an EMT, you will be of no value to your patients. Then those of us in fire based EMS who truly do care about learning more, and becoming better at our patient skills and assessments, will suffer the truly harsh, brash, and sometimes volatile remarks that the non fire oriented providers are very willing and capable of delivering. It just isn't fair.

I am not hacking on all of you out there who are non fire based EMS neither. I can understand that there are times you folks get a little upset with the firefighters who don't seem to care about being on the EMS alarm. I think that is too bad.

Wildfire, from my limited experience on this site, I feel compelled to offer you humble and free advice; be catious in regards to asking if people here feel that less education/training is a good thing. Some folks will pull out the old testament on ya and begin stoning you to death. I don't think that less training/education is ever a good thing, on the contrary, I would say that more education needs to be conducted. This should be at a minimum, monthly training, sometimes every shift if need be.

[akroeze]

I'm still not really clear what the difference is between an EMT and a FR?

What more does an EMT really know that a FR doesn't?