Leaderboard

Hi. I just ran across this site and thought it looked interesting. I have been a medic for over 9 years and I am also working currently on my RN license. I LOVE EMS and the people I am fortunate enough to work with! I'm new to the "city" and I'm just looking around now to see what all this "city" has to offer.

Like Ronald Reagan said in one of the debates "There you go again" Then why not go the firefighter route? But do you like long walks on the beach too? The powers that be are not conspiring to keep you out of this field, your conviction is conspiring against you. No ambulance service is conspiring to keep you out, the insurance agencies are looking at the numbers and they are saying from a risk standpoint, and yes I know risk because I've just spent the last 8 weeks studying risk management that a person who has a DWI conviction on their record is about 50-65% more likely to get another one. NO MATTER that they say "I'm reformed, I'll never do it again" It only takes two drinks in one hour and then get in a car and get stopped by a cop. Blow above a .08 and wham there's another DWI. So from a risk standpoint, you with your DWI are 50% more likely to go out and do it again,no matter what you say to the contrary. I'm sure you are a nice person, I'm sure you are a pillar in your community, I'm sure that you could be president of your country club and your PTA but to the insurance company that is insuring the ambulance service that you want to drive for, you are persona non-grata just like every other person who has everything from a C&I on up on their license. Don't get all pissy with us when we tell you these cold hard facts of life in our business because we KNOW these facts, for you came here for the information and from your original post, you asked for us not to beat you up, which to me says that you knew the answer and the response that you were going to get before you posted the question to us in the first place. And if you put yourself in our shoes, where every single one of us on this forum have seen the effects of what drunk driving does to people you would not be coming here getting pissed off at us for our tepid response to your questions. YES we have been tepid in our responses to you. Many of us have had first hand experience with loved ones affected directly by drunk drivers. Many of us have had loved ones killed or injured. by drunks. Many of us have seen families ripped apart and destroyed by drunk drivers just because a drunk was too STUPID and SELFISH not to call a friend or a cab to take them home. I'll be the one to say it, you were too stupid to call a cab or friend to take you home and you got caught. Just think of what would have happened had you not have made it home safely or had the officer not have caught you. LIves could have been ended or yours could have been ended as well. But I'm sure that with your turning over a new leaf you have thought about that as well right? So you should work on that fallback plan, take those long walks on the beach and not get pissy when you get the cold hard truth told to you because unfortunately, we don't have any control over who or what the insurance companies insure.

There is a fine line between spurring useful discussion and being a smartass. If I expect my comments to promote intelligent discussion I make them at the time. If I expect a negative, non-productive response I save it for later when I can pursue things intelligently. I like it. It demonstrates an open willingness to learn. Sometimes all that’s needed is an attitude adjustment.

That was my thinking as well (immature being the key word). I would love to be a student in paramedicine with an instructor who could respond well to challenging questions in class, but too many of us in our industry take those questions as some type of personal attack and respond negatively. By having the discussion one on one, you show that you are genuinely interested in it and not simply trying to show up your instructor. I do agree with Dwayne that it shouldn't be that way, but I think that in many places it is. We've put ourselves in a bad spot by putting people into management and education roles based solely on their time on the road and not their actual education in management or education.

I dunno Dwayne, when dealing with an immature educator my thinking was to discuss with him 1:1 and then he'd have the opportunity to discuss the change with the entire class. That way they can save face. If this is a regular occurrence though, it would be time for the class as a whole to ask for a change. One person dissatisfied with an instructor would be labelled as a trouble maker, but it's hard to ignore the entire class. In this case though, the class also disagreed with the OP, so he wasn't likely to get any support from them either.

You can take your two cents back because you clearly don't understand the seriousness or ramifications of your conviction. You cannot, in any seriousness, expect an employer to be more concerned about someone with a clean driving record over someone who has plainly demonstrated stupidity and a blatant lack of common sense. Are you seriously arguing that drivers with a clean record should be suspect simply because they haven't been caught? Are you seriously arguing that you deserve more consideration than someone with a clean driving record because you've seen the light, so to speak? You sound like you're very close to a "I'm the victim here" mentality. That's what I hear in my head as I read that post. If that is, in fact, where you're headed then stop right now because belittling you for the stupidity of being a drunk driver will be the least of your concerns.

GHOSTBUSTERS

I understand where you're coming from, and I have also worked with some terrible providers whos skills are no where near what they should be.. However, I have also worked with some excellent providers who have been working as EMTs for years and have kept up their knowledge base and skills and I don't think that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just because they took their training in 1976 doesn't mean that their designations should be demoted. That was all that was available at the time. If a more indepth and challenging course was available at that time, I'm sure a lot of them would have been willing to take it. Look at the RN program for example. It used to be a diploma program and they have now switched the course to a full degree. This doesn't mean we should demote the RNs who took the diploma to LPNs just because they took a 2 year program and not a 4 year one. I agree that the oldschool "scoop and scoot" providers who have no interest in advancing their training or competency are holding us back as a profession, but that doesn't mean their title should be demoted to an EMR status "just because." We should have all providers do skill testing along with an annual knowledge exam to advance our profession and the problem will be corrected.

The police, because all the other fire trucks are on medical runs

I am glad I am an EMT, this way I don't get stuck doing all the clean up work like a paramedic. I was totally being sarcastic, basing my comment on the career overview article. No it couldn't have been wriiten by a second grader, they have too much intelligence compared to the writer in that article. I also sent a comment to the email address as listed above "Sirs, I read the horrific career overview regarding the duties of paramedics as compared to EMTs. The writer apparently did not do their homework regarding the duties of each of these positions. The paramedic is not the clean up person for EMTs. The paramedic requires a much higher level of knowledge and duties than that of the EMT. As an EMT, I work with many paramedics who can make doctors look bad. Please either rewrite or retract the article and print something that looks like some research went into it."