FedEx

In Connecticut there is another private ambulance service who assumed the remnants of a defunct community college based course to startup their own "in house paramedic course", which is also open to public applicants willing to pay. They charge employees full sticker price and sometimes make loans to them. In some cases part of the tuition may be "forgiven" after the fact based on a few years of service after completion of the course and working as a medic for the complany. We all wondered and worried that the obvious conflicts of interest by drawing most candidates from your own pool of EMTs might quickly deplete the well qualified candidates and that the temptation to override a strong screening process might prove too much. It has proven such. It's worth noting that the company itself has employeed a number of quality medics and preceptors over the years, though it lacks the ability to keep them, as with many commercial services, due to the usual competing interests, benefits, and alternative options available to medics. The company does indeed strive to provide high quality care and generally provides good CQI/QA, equipment, and support to ensure thorough quality patient care for 911 calls. It was said well above. Theoretically any private company could produce a high quality course weeding out weak candidates, maintain consistent high quality teaching, and produce high quality students, contrary to the obvious conflicts of interest in just crankin 'em out to get them on the streets working at their service. Unfortunately that has not been our local experience. We noted a distinct drop in quality comparing students from the previous school when it existed (and other area schools) vs. this school since the startup of the course. Since it's run several years now we cannot attribute this drop to the startup learning curve of running a new program. It's a real challenge to run an entire paramedic training program. But this model lacks true objective oversite ensuring a quality program. Again theoretically it could work. But this one doesn't.