Marine EMT-B?

[asrnj77]

My little brother is a L CPL. in the USMC. 1st of the 7th. He already did a tour in Iraq and is waiting to go back for a second tour sometime middle of next year (hopefully not though). But before he goes, he told me on the phone the other day, he's gonna take something like a "combat life saver" course. It's about a month long, and at the end he'll a NREMT-B. We didn't get a chance to talk for long, so I wasn't able to get much more info then that.

The Army has been teaching NREMT-B in a month. The instructors though told me that they have been having a pretty high rate of failure for first time test takers on National Registry. The Army then teaches CMAST (combat medic advanced skills training) in a week. This replaced the former TC3. So it's very possible to merge a CLS/EMT-B course in a month. I kinda thought Navy Corpsmen did medic work for the Marines? Is this like a backup medic position or for smaller units?

[NREMT-Basic]

I recently received some requested information from the Navy about their "EMS" training. They called it Corpman training, and it really seems to go past EMT to really the level of Intermediate and a little beyond. From what I could tell they are taught all of what an Intermediate is taught, plus even a little emergency dentistry. Huh. Who knew?

[Dustdevil]

The Army has been teaching NREMT-B in a month. The instructors though told me that they have been having a pretty high rate of failure for first time test takers on National Registry. The Army then teaches CMAST (combat medic advanced skills training) in a week. This replaced the former TC3. So it's very possible to merge a CLS/EMT-B course in a month.

This is true. I re-took EMT-B with the Army last Autumn. It was a course for people who were ALREADY practising Army medics, not new enlistees. And, sure enough, there were quite a few boneheaded failures in NR. I heard they all did okay the second time around though. Yes, they probably would have done better had they added a little more time to the course. But really, I believe much of the failure was just as due to the ridiculously ambiguous nature of the NR exam itself.

I kinda thought Navy Corpsmen did medic work for the Marines? Is this like a backup medic position or for smaller units?

CLS are not medics. They are just line soldiers and marines who are given hardcore battle first aid training. It is not their job or their focus. It is not a backup. It is simply a military equivalent of "first responder" training they are given in order to be able to get lifesaving care to casualties as quickly as possible. Their ONLY focus is battle injuries. Nothing else. They are not even close to replacing a corpsman.

[Lucky~13]

Sorry it took me so long to reply, was on a much needed vacation

Had a talk with my brother about this when he came home for the holidays. What he described sounds exactly like the CLS program, but they test for the EMT-B registry after this one month course. Maybe the marines have got a new program?