Advocacy Poll: What do You the Individual 'on the Street'

[AZCEP]

Yeah, okay, I think we understand more clearly now.

[Walker30613]

IMO, self-regulation is the most importnat issue in Canada, possibly everywheres else. All the other issues fall into place once self-regulation is achieved. :!:

take care,

Jay

[Ace844]

Come on guys, there are nearly 9000 members here, Here's your chance to be heard, Vote the poll....Post your opinion and make a difference!!!!

ACE844

[Nate]

I believe that they are all equally important. However; before we can see a change in one, we must come together and make the effort to meet all of the goals listed (and many more not listed). The biggest problem with EMS is that to many people want to be Chief and no one wants to be the Indian.

This might hurt some people's feelings, but I think we have a large portion of EMS personal who really shouldn't be in this industry. Lets face it, most of us care about our industry (or we wouldn't be here), however we all know of at least five people who see this as "just a job" and nothing more.

The answer to ridding an industry of the "waste" in many fields is to simply raise the bar. This would be great, however we are going to see several people fight this because it would mean change. Heck, just look at the battle that was fought when Texas wanted to require all firefighters to be at least an EMT-Basic. Many small town and older firefighters and fire chiefs were set in their ways and did not want to see that happen.

Higher standards, higher education, and less tolerance and exceptions is what we need.

[temsp40]

Standardizing education requirements is a priority for EMS as a whole. This way there will be a standard of training that every EMS provider is taught anywhere they may be trained.

By making this adjustment to a standard, I think that the National Scope of Practice may actually become a reality in my EMS lifetime. There should be no reason that an EMT-Basic from the east coast should have any different skill competency than an EMT-Basic from the west coast. This same reasoning also applies to Intermediates and Paramedics. I do not want to see a bunch of "cook book" pre-hospital medicine being practiced throughout the country, but rather a bunch of really solid fundamental skill sets established and practiced by every EMS provider in the country.

Establishing a standard will also require that EMS becomes independant of other Federal oversight systems -- we all gripe and complain that we are not all fire service or hospital services and hopefully the Federal Government will realize this and make us a separate division of Health and Human Services.

[JakeEMTP]

I choose #2 as my #1 priority.

By standardising a Nat'l curriculum, the rest should fall into place accordingly. I can only speak for the educational institutions I am familiar with, some of them educate according to County protocols. That doesn't help with a Nat'l scope of practice. NC, being a non-NR State ( I have heard rumblings of NC going to the dark side, however, no mention of a timeline ) has a problem with this. Not in my program as the instructor is preparing us for Nat'l Registry. Licensure would be leaps and bounds above credentialing. look what it did for nursing.

[chbare]

This is how the poll is going at fieldmedics.com. Total of 10 votes. There are polls on other websites as well. (trauma central and ems village) However, EMT city and fieldmedics have the only polls with 10 or more votes. It would be interesting to compare the data if more people voted.

1) 20% [2]

2) 30% [3]

3) 20% [2]

4) 20% [2]

5) 10% [1]

Take care,

chbare.