School Essay

[Brandon B]

I have to write a career paper for school. I have chosen the career as a Paramedic and need some information. Can anyone help with the following questions?

• Educational requirements including: minimum education, continuing education requirements such as those required to maintain certification, and the benefits of advanced education
  
• Salary expectations
  
• Work-place description
  
• Personal characteristics needed to be successful in the position
  
• Prospects for growth in the position
  
• Prospects for growth of the career field
  

Thanks

[Kiwiology]

Educational requirements including: minimum education, continuing education requirements such as those required to maintain certification

Quick international comparison for the Advanced Life Support level (generically the same as a US Paramedic)

New Zealand and Australia - Bachelors Degree plus a Post Graduate Diploma for Intensive Care Paramedic (min 5-6 years)

UK - a Diploma of Higher Education or Foundation Degree for State Registered Paramedic (minimum time two years)

Canada - three years of university education for Advanced Care Paramedic (qualification title varies by province)

South Africa - four year Bachelors Degree for Emergency Care Practitioner

US - no college education required programs must meet EMS Education Standards and be approved by state and CAAHEP so roughly around 1,000 hours of education anywhere from 12 weeks + skills internship to a two year Associates Degree. Texas requires a minimum of 625 hours in total while Oregon and Kansas require a two year Degree.

Salary expectations

Base rates - excludes call back, penal rates and overtime

New Zealand Intensive Care Paramedic - NZD60,000 pa / USD46,000 pa

Australian Intensive Care Paramedic - roughly AUD78,000 / USD78,000 pa (AV)

UK Paramedic - GBP21-27,000 / USD32-42,000 pa (NHS AfC Band 5)

Canadian ACP - CAD70,000 / USD70,000 (Canada Wage and Salary Survey)

Work-place description

Not as glamorous as the telly makes out. Majority of jobs are not road traffic accidents as people think but simple medical jobs at peoples homes because they are medically unwell. Equally can be on the street or down a cliff or upside down in a ditch. With very few exceptions both night and day shifts are worked and are generally between 8 and 24 hours in length.

In NZ, AU and UK between jobs ambulance crews go back to residential stations where we can sleep, watch TV, surf the internet, cook dinner or do whatever. In the US a concept called "system status management" is used at some agencies were crews are "posted" to parking lots, gas stations, major intersections etc and are expected to generally sit and wait in the ambulance vehicle. Canada I am not sure about.

In NZ, AU, Canada and UK crews have very strict rest break and fatigue management rules where they can only work for a certain number of hours and must have breaks. In the US this is generally not the case and few rules exist, some may have mandated breaks but many do not. As an example in NZ you must have a 30 minute break for each 5.5 hours of work, can only work 13 hours in any 24 then must have a 12 hour break and can only work 60 hours in any week then must have a 24 hour break.

Personal characteristics needed to be successful in the position

High level of maturity and resiliency

Excellent interpersonal and communication skills

Empathy and tolerance

Well developed communication ability - written and oral

Lateral problem solver

Prospects for growth in the position

The UK, AU, NZ and Canada have a well defined career path because of the highly structured and centralised nature of service delivery where you can move into such positions as team, district or regional manager, clinical support, clinical standards, rapid response, motorcycle response, ambulance rescue, flight paramedic, university faculty (with additional qualifications), hazardous materials response or special access teams etc

Edited June 17, 2012 by Kiwiology

[Brandon B]

anyone else have anything to add before i put this report together? the more info i have the better

[rock_shoes]

Kiwi gave you a pretty good rundown. For more information on the Canadian system the Wikipedia article is relatively accurate.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramedics_in_Canada

[Just Plain Ruff]

And not to be a jerk or anything, but I think kiwi nearly wrote your essay for you as well, hopefully you won't use just what he put down, hopefully you will have done more research than just this forum. I'd be interested to see what you turned in to your instructor. Care to share your final product?

but good luck.

Edited June 20, 2012 by Captain ToHellWithItAll

[Brandon B]

sure ill post final next week as thats when its due this week is rough draft. thanks for the intrest

[Just Plain Ruff]

i t really would like to see the final copy

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

[emtdennis]

_{Please do post the final copy, looking forward to reading it.. I was following the posts, but saw I couldn't add much to what Kiwi said.}

[Brandon B]

i tried to attach the file but it wont let me any ideal how i can post it. its a word doc.

[cscboulder11]

More reply options > Upload file. The limit is 500 K

If your file exceeds that, you'll have to copy/paste or upload on another site and provide the link.