EMTs and EMT-Is speak out!

[Asysin2leads]

I would like to point out that the post count is 19 as of my post. The request was to allow 20 posts until a medic got involved. Why am I not surprised this didn't happen?

Because we can't keep our mouths shut. :oops:

[sirduke]

Because we can't keep our mouths shut. :oops:

At long last, something we agree on.

What makes you think that just because I'm not a paramedic yet that I am not qualified to offer an opinion on what makes a good paramedic.

I'm not a mother, but I can offer up items that make a good one, because unlike you, I had one.

I'm not a lawyer, but again, I can offer up things that make a good one. I've had to use one.

I'm not yet a paramedic, but I've worked with many, a few bad, the majority excellent.

Just because I am not a paramedic doesnt mean that I can't observe and make observations. Or is that beyond your scope of understanding.

You sir, assume that I'm (a) failing my classes, ( am offering up war stories instead of listening, © handing out drugs and preforming treatments beyond my scope of practice, etc. etc. any yet you don't even know a thing about me.

As for my preceptor, I didn't name her, I doubt she would have a problem with that. You see, unlike you, she is a Paramedic, not a PARAGOD.

Flame on there sparky

[defib_wizard]

I don't understand all of the arguing. Some people sound like they watch too much Judge Judy on duty.

Experience is something that will come in time. It is up to you to decide whether the experience will help you be a better provider. If you go on every call with the attitude that you can learn something from the pt, it doesn't matter what level you are.

While getting this experience you have to ask "why?" Develop a learning and helping team type relationship with the hospital staff. Most of the time the Docs and RNs will share their knowledge.

If you think that experience is not important, then should we call BS on the "heavyweights " of this site when they describe theirs.

It is education and experience that assist you in critical decision making. A new medic that has limited clinical experience may miss some of the finer points of pt assessment. This could keep them from giving a patient something that could make them better.

On the flip side a medic that has been "just running calls" with lots of call experience and a limited education can be just as detrimental to the pt.

Hey at least I waited until 20 posts to wade into the fray.

[AnthonyM83]

Two medics makes more sense than an EMT and a medic. Nothing paragod about it. Not sure if this is what you wanted in the thread . . . -Anthony, EMTB

[Asysin2leads]

At long last, something we agree on.

What makes you think that just because I'm not a paramedic yet that I am not qualified to offer an opinion on what makes a good paramedic.

.

First of all, I don't think anything. I know you can't speak intelligently about being a paramedic because not only are you not a paramedic, you are also a very immature, uneducated individual.

I'm not a mother, but I can offer up items that make a good one, because unlike you, I had one.

You know, if your first statement about the not understanding why you can't speak intelligently about being a paramedic when you're not, in fact, a paramedic, was pretty dumb, you just showed the depths of your idiocy by saying something like that when you don't even know me. But for record, I know in your thar parts when someone says something like that I'm supposed to slap you with a white glove and demand satisfaction and all that, but because I actually have an adult life and things to do, that's just not going to happen. But if I told my mother what you just said SHE would come down their and kick your ass.

I'm not a lawyer, but again, I can offer up things that make a good one. I've had to use one.

Yeah, there's a shocker. :shock:

I'm not yet a paramedic, but I've worked with many, a few bad, the majority excellent.

Not really, if they were any good they would have recognized what a danger you are and made sure you were back managing the Dairy Queen by sundown.

Just because I am not a paramedic doesnt mean that I can't observe and make observations. Or is that beyond your scope of understanding.

No. What is beyond my scope of understanding is how you've made it this far without being left tied to a tree some place by a grumpy paramedic crew.

You sir, assume that I'm (a) failing my classes, ( am offering up war stories instead of listening, © handing out drugs and preforming treatments beyond my scope of practice, etc. etc. any yet you don't even know a thing about me.

If I was still arguing with you, I'd point out that I didn't say you're failing your classes, I said that in my EXPERIENCE as a paramedic student and paramedic preceptor, people like you tend not to do very well. I've failed enough of them to know. And speaking of not knowing a thing about you, aren't you the one who made claims about my lack of a mother???

As for my preceptor, I didn't name her, I doubt she would have a problem with that. You see, unlike you, she is a Paramedic, not a PARAGOD.

Well, how about you do name her, name your service, and name your school so I can give them my professional recommendation about what to do with you? Or are you just another rebel chickenshit who hides behind the Internet?

Flame on there sparky

Yeah, yeah, yeah... run away little man. You are out of your league here.

[sirduke]

Oh my, has the "little man" EMT upset the Paragod?

You are the one who barged in with the mud slinging and slander. I just gave you back your own vitrol. You started this attack, not me, typical Paragod syndrome iffen you-all axe me..

Yes God, I is uneducated, reckon us Gawga folks is just dumber that a box o rocks.

Guess I wasted all that time in college and tech school, not to mention all the professional development courses I've taken over the years.

Gee, Dairy Queen, nah, I failed the entrance exam, kept mixing the whipped cream and chocolate up.

I guess I'll crawl back into my lil ole Rebel double wide trailer, and strum my ole banjo.

Give me a PM if you want details.

[Dustdevil]

As an EMT-I' date=' I'm expected to take care of the BLS part so that he or she can deal with the Advanced stuff. While my paramedic is getting the patient on the monitor, deciding on what interventions, what meds, etc. are needed, I take care of establishing the IV, getting them on O2 if needed, splinting or bleeding control, etc. Vital signs, securing the meds from family members, what ever he needs done. At the same time, I am observing the patient, learning from him if he is a good medic, and further learning what I need to know for the day I am the medic.[/quote']

Another medic could do all that for me too, so why do I need a basic or intermediate?

Complete nonsense. It is feasible. You are just cheaper. And the reason that there is a shortage is because you are cheaper. You are the problem. EMTs are like the wetbacks of EMS. They provide cheap, uneducated, unskilled labour that keeps wages down for the qualified professionals.

As already pointed out by ERDoc, wrong. That's just one of those feel-good platitudes your instructor blew up your arse in order to make you feel good about yourself, and the money you wasted on his EMT school. There is no ALS and BLS. There is only medical care. And medical care is not a collection of skills. It is a practice of science and art that requires an intelligent and educated preparation to provide competently at ANY level. And to those of us who have that education and intelligence, there really is no room for uneducated amateurs who function on a purely technical "skill" level. I need another thinker working with me, not just another pair of hands.

I have no idea if you are a whacker or not. But while you certainly are not useless, you are indeed useless to me as a partner until you have attained a minimal level of educational preparation to begin learning the job. Congratulations on your efforts to do that.

That is the fault of your employer, who SUCKS, for putting a new grad in the field with an EMT. If your employer was a professional provider of quality care, this would not have happened. No amount of school can completely prepare you for the realities of field practice. However, if that school graduated someone who had not yet been tested under fire, then that school also SUCKS as bad as your employer. Education itself is not the answer. QUALITY education is the answer. Sounds to me like EMS simply SUCKS in your area, both educationally and professionally, so yeah, I would expect to see a lot of new providers who SUCK, not just medics. Had that n00b had a seasoned medic as a partner, he could have not only learned more from the experience, but also assured that the patient received proper care. Congratulations to you for assuring that this did not happen by working on the cheap so they don't have to hire more medics.

I'd be a lot happier if a real medic, who had a real understanding of paramedic practice, had "helped" him. It would have been a lot more beneficial to him and the patient.

You, like the green medics, SHOULD have learned it before you finished school. Why is it okay to you that EMTs come out of school functionally illiterate for practice, but a sin for new medics to need seasoning?

Wrong. The only one who "needs" it are those EMTs who want a cool job without having to get all that book learnin'. Us medics don't "need" EMTs. If the level were to disappear overnight, with degreed paramedic becoming the entry level of practice, not a single one of us would miss you. In fact, our jobs would become a lot easier overnight if you went away. As would our wages and our professional opportunities, as well as the level of care received by our patients, so don't overrate yourself.

Uhhh... no shyte, Sherlock. Nobody is suggesting that. We are simply suggesting that it be done in the proper sequence. All that "experience" should be had AFTER one has achieved a minimum level of educational foundation upon which to build. Because all the "experience" in the world doesn't mean DICK if you don't have the knowledge from which to base the decisions you make before you take "action". The days of the protocol monkey are numbered. No other country in the world does it except the U.S. To be a REAL practising medical professional requires an educational foundation so that you can make your own intelligent decisions about patient care. Simply memorising protocol flowcharts does not make you a medical professional at any level, and that includes the technical paramedic schools who do not provide a solid foundation of scientific prerequisites. So it damn sure includes any silly simple EMT or EMT-I course.

Back asswards, and completely refuted by all intelligent modern principles of professional adult education. No other medical profession on earth does it that way. If it were sound educational practice, that's how they would train doctors. They don't, and it isn't.

Hey, at least you are thinking. Points for trying to use your head. Unfortunately, as already pointed out, without having ever achieved professional education and certification yourself, you are not in a good position to opine on the optimum way of doing so. And you are drawing your opinions from a very, very shallow pool of information, which seems to be mostly uneducated assumptions and a lot of old school "conventional wisdom" that is spouted by all the other tech school losers and burnouts around you to make themselves feel better, not from education professionals who know better. With any luck, you'll open your mind and expand your universe here at EMT City and see how wrong you are. We were all wrong at one time, myself certainly included. It took me over a decade to see the light. Hopefully, you'll get there a lot sooner than I did.

[sirduke]

Now that was a real response to my post, bad as I hate to say it, Dust, you is de man.

For those of you who may have missed it, not only did he wait until the OP's appointed time to chime in, but managed to refute everything I've said without jumping out with flaming vitriol.

I salute you Devil.

I agree with the statement about putting a green medic in the field, again, there it is.

The service I work for is slowly coming around. The problem seems to be the county administration and the prior director.

It is getting better, but slowly. I am hoping to get hired with another service when I get my paramedic license in December. Until then, I don't have much choice but to stay.

I took the job as an EMT-I so that I could go to paramedic school, the local schools won't take you as a paramedic school without a service sponsoring you, so I had no choice. Took a hell of a pay cut from my previous job to do it, but my eventual goal is worth it.

Anyway, thanks again for an interesting discussion. I'm sure we'll butt heads again on this site.

Until then my head remains bloody but unbowed...

Now I'll get out of here before immigration finds my wetback ass.

[Dustdevil]

I took the job as an EMT-I so that I could go to paramedic school, the local schools won't take you as a paramedic school without a service sponsoring you, so I had no choice. Took a hell of a pay cut from my previous job to do it, but my eventual goal is worth it.

And that is the very unfortunate root of the ignorance we see perpetuated upon our profession. Those new to the field have no frame of reference, either geographically or historically. They don't know how things work elsewhere. They don't know how things even used to work where they are. All they know is what they experience. That's not just an EMS thing. That's just human nature. But what this causes is for newcomers to assume that "this is the way we've always done it, so it must be the right way," so to fit in with the system, they begin to endorse the way it's always been rather than intelligently thinking through the alternatives. If everyone thought that way, we'd still be trying to discover electricity. It seriously stifles the progression and growth of our profession. That's why so many of us here are so passionate about trying to get n00bs to think outside of the box, to visualise a better future, not just a perpetuation of today. It's not about trying to bash anyone or tear anyone down. It's about extending a hand out to you so that you might climb aboard this train into the future with us.

One day, when EMS becomes a profession, the situation you have encountered in your career will be nothing but an embarrassing chapter in the slow and awkward growth of the profession. EMTs will not be a stepping stone to paramedic school. EMTs will be professionally trained first responders, providing that vital link within the EMS system. But paramedics will -- like every other medical professional (and every other profession, for that matter) -- be homegrown, from the bottom up, with a solid educational foundation of scientific knowledge and understanding established BEFORE they are thrown into experiential scenarios and clinical practice. That way, every experience they encounter will build upon knowledge they already have. What we have now is people going out and getting "experience" with situations they are not equipped to deal with, and then having to go back afterwards and learn what it was all about. Not only does that kill patients, it kills careers. It really, really has to stop.

[Richard B the EMT]

GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!

We're back to the "Paragods"?

I don't mind a (little) bit of arrogance from those who are trained to a higher level of medical care. My problem is when they don't cooperate with the lesser trained.

I've mentioned in the past, some Paragods do a nasty thing called the "Paramedic Push", or "Paramedic Shove". This is illustrated by the tendency to physically push away the EMTs, and sometimes the EMTs do it to the first responders, from the patients.

I have heard several reports of EMTs actually knocked onto their keisters by practitioners of this.

Politeness should always be protocol, even if not written into the operations guide.

The way we should "play together" is, those of higher training should ask the lower trained personnel what they have, what vitals they may have already assessed, as in a basic "SitRep" (Situation Report) and ask them to stay a while until the higher trained personnel can do a further assessment, as they might be needed, even if it's only as equipment pack mules. Have them feel "They are a part of the team!"

I usually explain to the first responders that while they already took vitals, I'm going to take my own set, but emphasize that I'm going to compare my readings to theirs, to determine if there has been any significant changes. I do this, even if they just took the BP cuff off the patient, and are still folding it.

Look at it this way: There will be times you want them to back you up, which they might not do if they regard you as a "know-it-all idiot who loves being nasty to 'us' (the lower trained personnel) only because we don't know what they know. Why should we help the likes of them?"