If you could change one thing in EMS .......................

[crotchitymedic1986]

I am new, so forgive me if this is a stupid question, that isnt worthy of the room, but i see quite a bit of experience and ems genious in the membership of this forum. So if I were the magic genie in the bottle that you rubbed, and i granted YOU ONE WISH, and only one wish that you could only use to change ONE THING in the EMS Industry, what would you change ? Think hard, you only get one wish ?

Personally, I would like to see an ambulance that was built from scratch, from the ground up, designed by and for medics in the field, with all aspects of ergonomics and safety considered. Instead of whatever is the cheapest way to throw a box on the back of a pick-up chassis.

[ERDoc]

My wish would be for a single provider level, educated to a level on par with a PA, with the appropriate skills.

[hammerpcp]

More FF auctions. fo sure!

[reaper]

There already are companies that build boxes from the ground up, from your specs. You just have to pay more for it!

[crotchitymedic1986]

i know reaper, but its still a box on the back of a pickup chassis --- I am talking about something new from the ground up. Like UPS has their own truck. My idea of an ambulance may not look anything like what we have on the road now, maybe it would be the same, just safer --- maybe it would be on a special toyota/lexus chassis to give us better reliability.

[Dustdevil]

My wish would be for a single provider level, educated to a level on par with a PA, with the appropriate skills.

Ditto. A single, four-year educational entry level requirement for all practitioners. It's the only thing that could completely transform EMS into an actual profession.

It's hard to believe that anyone with more than a year in this field would still be hung up on gear.

[WolfmanHarris]

The ambulance isn't really "gear" like "hey wouldn't it be cool if this monitor had gizmo xyz?" The Ambulance is where we spend alot of our time and where all our patients end up. They're also not particularly safe for us or our patient's.

Proper driving, not blowing lights and laying off the L&S will help alot, but we really do need to take a long hard look at safety standards and vehicle design. Fancier lights, louder sirens and foams padding on everything in the back all look nice and are incremental improvements, but I haven't seen any groundbreaking rethinks on vehicles.

Personally, if I had ONE thing to chance, I'd agree with you and change the education end of it. If I had five, new thinking on Ambulance design would be in there somewhere.

- Matt

[UMSTUDENT]

Ditto. A single, four-year educational entry level requirement for all practitioners. It's the only thing that could completely transform EMS into an actual profession.

It's hard to believe that anyone with more than a year in this field would still be hung up on gear.

Trippl...o? Yeah, same here. Put prehospital medicine into the universities of this country...

[Ridryder 911]

Requirement would be at the least a B.S. degree and another medical license before entering Paramedic school. This would eliminate a lot of our problems. At the least most would have to be able to read and this would eliminate a lot of the wanna be firefighters and having another medical license would mean at the least you have a partial understanding of health care.

[spenac]

Requirement would be at the least a B.S. degree and another medical license before entering Paramedic school. This would eliminate a lot of our problems. At the least most would have to be able to read and this would eliminate a lot of the wanna be firefighters and having another medical license would mean at the least you have a partial understanding of health care.

But all we do is drive fast and make lots of noise. We don't need no stinkin' edumacation for that. No sir. I learned enough watching nascar to know what I need to do this patamedic thing.