Dustdevil

I think it's a joke, as is the joker who runs it.

There is nothing advanced about it, so I really don't see where the name came from. Guess they thought it would attract more applicants if they gave it a fancy name. Might as well call them supersonic tactical flight officers.

Regulation doesn't mean unlawful to bear arms....

In NYC, it does. If NYC had a low violent crime rate, I might understand where you're coming from.

What is the rate of murder in NYC committed with lawfully possessed guns? Pretty damn small. So how's that "regulation" working out for ya?

Why not a 3 mile run? It's more than we're ever likely to do, so a half mile run by comparison will be easy... Overtrain.

I dont think a PFT is unreasonable.

I don't think a master's degree and MENSA membership are unreasonable either, but I'm betting you do.

I personally have had enough of this "special rights advocates" for ALL these organized militant groups demanding fair treatment and that have been so "persecuted", they will receive 1.8 % of my concern.

ROFL!

This is just one of the reasons, we need Gun Regulation...

Yes, it works SO well in NYC that I am sure Arizona would be a LOT safer with the same laws, lol.

Please don't move south and bring your ghettos with you.

I think what Dust was say is that there is no reason for FD to respond. They can get FFs on-scene so quickly because they are sitting around doing nothing. Get rid of some of the FFs and hire real medics to staff ambulances and you can solve your problem with little effect on costs (might even be able to save a few bucks because you know they aren't going to pay Medics the same as the FFs).

^ This.

Again, why would anyone spend EMS funds on people who cannot provide EMS, and then blame someone else for the problem they have created? It boggles the mind how idiotic that is. But the really scary thing is that they're not doing it out of idiocy. They're doing it out of selfish dishonesty.

America's heroes, my arse.

My only education is some college and then P-school. I was thinking about taking a college course for A&P, mainly to refresh.

Refresh? LOL! If you've never taken those, you won't be refreshing anything. You'll be pouring a foundation for the house you've already built. Obviously far from an ideal solution, but better late than never.

No, experience is not the best way. Education is. Without a foundation, you have nothing to build upon. Go back to school, starting next semester.

I have nothing to add that I haven't already said thousands of times. But I just want to recognise the awesomeness of your observation, usmc_chris. It is the exact same feeling I got the first time I took any EMS exam, NR or otherwise.

Unfortunately, we as providers have to set our own bar. The IAFC and NAEMT won't allow it any higher than it already is. And I honestly don't think that things will ever get any better.

From Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, MA

<snip>

I don't doubt there are some schools that provide a watered down AP course with no pre-requisites required in some parts of the country. In that case, by all means take these courses.

Well, I was hoping for some examples from America, but thanks for the effort. As I speculated, you are making your observation from an extremely limited sampling. Most every nursing, respiratory therapy, radiology, and paramedic degree programme in the country includes two semesters of A&P without a BIO prerequisite. And they are not "watered down." Having both a nursing and a biology degree myself, I can assure you that there is no good reason for such a requirement. Knowing that birds have hollow bones, and cockroaches breathe through their skin, did nothing to help my understanding of my patients. To quote Dr. McCoy from Star Trek, "Dammit, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a veterinarian!"

As for negative points on posts, I guess I never considered the different reasons that people give (or take) them. But I generally do so to recognise either the validity, profundity, or helpfulness of someone's information. Consequently, I don't have any problem with Lone Star's vote.

This has been covered so many times here that I'm actually a little surprised that you are, well... surprised.

You may as well have told them you wanted to be an astronaut.

To enroll in an A&P course at almost any college you need to first have taken general bio and general chemistry as pre-requisites. Traditionally these are all 8 credit two course sequences spanning 2 semesters.

On what planet??

Got any links to these requirements? Either you are completely mistaken, or else you are basing this assumption upon a very limited sampling.

I might have agreed with your dubious recommendation 25 years ago. But today, Basics are being given much more responsibility than they were in the 70s and 80s, including drug administration and invasive procedures. Today's First Responder is what the EMT was in the 80s. Do FRs need college A&P? No. But the EMT-B absolutely does, given the current scope of practice.

Hi all, I introduced myself in the meet and greet forum but had a question concerning school.

I plan to take the EMT course this fall. My question is, would I do better taking the Human Anatomy & Physiology classes first, or just jump

right into the course itself. I realize that it would give me a running start for the EMT course, but my problem is time. I'd like to not waste anymore time in pursuing my dream. Any help at all would be appreciated.

Your dream? What is your dream?

If your dream is to have an EMT card in your wallet, then go to the three-week course in California,

If your dream is to be a competent medical provider, that won't look stupid when asked the most basic questions about the human body that you are supposed to be a certified "technician" of, then spend this summer taking both semesters of A&P.

You NEVER get a second chance to build a foundation. It's not something you can just go back and do later. If you get ahead of your foundation from the start, you will forever be less of a medic than you could have been. Anyone who tells you different is ignorant, and possibly just plain stupid.

I may take some flak for this, but...

I'd like to see some sort of entrance requirement similar to a Marine Corps PFT, and a CFT modified for EMS. I'm also not entirely opposed to body fat % requirements (except in cases of a genuine medical condition causing it, or causing an inability to exercise).

Just to enrol into EMT-B school??

Schools would never go for that. It'd be impossible to keep their classes full.

I am not against higher education, I am against wasting money on courses for a career you are not already in.

Damn, man (?). I gave you a +1 for your opening post, but then had to take it back when I read the above post.

So you're saying that people shouldn't bother to learn their job until they are hired? It don't work that way. When you see someone with MD after their name. you can pretty safely assume that they have already attained the educational foundation necessary to begin competently "practising" to perfect their craft and charge for it. Our patients should be able to safely assume the same thing about us, when we show up to care for them during the worst hour of their life, shouldn't they? Yeah, I realise that might cramp the plans of a lot of 3-week wonders, who think that qualifies them as a big hero, who gets to play with the siren and eat half-price at Dairy Queen. Oh well.

A rural service I spent years with in the 80s carried Kefzol for open fractures and penetrating trauma, which would usually be airlifted into Dallas. Administration was at the discretion of the medic or nurse in charge of that patient. There was no cookbook protocol. I believe they stopped using field abx in the 90s, when the hospital stopped running the service, and the county started hiring trailer trash medics and EMTs.

The above is pretty well how we functioned in military field medicine too, although 3G cephalosporins have now become the standard.

As already mentioned, obviously a C&S is neither necessary nor practical for prophylaxis.

I guess I describe race when relevant the same way I would describe age or sex. Not simply to fill out my forms but to add information that I felt made them different from the 'norm' where medical decisions are/were concerned.

^ This. You can argue the relevance of just about any piece of info on a PCR. But, the more thorough you are, the more respected your assessments will be. It's always amusing to hear someone argue against including items in our assessment, when so many of us are trying to encourage more thorough assessments.

I believe some are confusing race with colour. To describe someone as black or white is absurdly ambiguous. I prefer the actual racial labels, such as negro or caucasian.

Here is vegas, FD arrives first 2/3 of the time and private ambulance 1/3 of the time. I think FD has a vaild point and the news uncovered that the private ambulance companies are cheating on dispatching the calls. I know out here in Vegas, when you need a paramedic, you depend of FD not AMR or Medicwest

Did you read anything I wrote in my first post? The FD is then reason that EMS is stretched too thin. When they are the cause of the problem, it's pretty absurd to believe they have a valid point.

What does everyone thing out AMR hitting the arrived button when they are miles away?

I think it will eventually come back to bite them in the arse, just like the firemonkeys and their sick leave scam.

I dunno, bro. That seems a bit like saying that Nationally Registered EMTs are the best in the world, and everyone else, with credentials from other countries, is a wannabe because NR doesn't recognise them.. Credentials don't define the quality of a provider.

Would you believe me if i told you that a student in my medic program was sent home from his internship shift because he was unable to figure out how a nasal cannula works. True story. Or the guy who tried to intubate holding the scope in his right hand, we still make fun of him for that one.

Hehe... nothing unusual about that. Even the good ones make nervous mistakes until they have the second-nature muscle memory that comes with practice. That's why students are supervised. God knows I've pulled my share of boners. It's those that lack the intellectual capacity to understand and learn from their mistakes that are the problem.

Skills are very rarely ever a concern to me at any level of training. If the student has that mental capacity, then his/her skills will always improve with practice, and schools ought to be providing that amount of practice. But, no matter how long they practice, morons will forever remain morons. You can't fix stupid. Consequently, my teaching is heavily focused on education, not training. There are already too many trained monkeys out there who know which hand to use, but not when or why. Those are the ones who are holding us back.

This is where a developmental psychology understanding helps. Think about babies. One learns to walk at 10 months. The other takes 13 months to walk. Does that mean the first is most likely to be smarter, stronger, or more successful? No. So I don't get terribly impressed by how fast someone masters repetitive tasks. After all, I'm not paying them by the hour. They are paying me.

PATSLIDE (patient slide), usually we just call em "Pat"

Ah, okay! I thought we were talking about a technique, not a device. Never heard it called that before, although they are in use here. They don't see much use outside of the general med/surg or long term care settings.

Good thought Dust, i hadn't considered that, but i thought im sure the OP the pt was on a scoop??

And another thing... whats wrong with pat sliding a patient on a spine board or scoop stretcher? its one less lift you have to do, and should not only be used more but highly encouraged!

Ah, okay. I understood him to say the staties slid the patient off of the vollies scoop, onto their stretcher, Again, major no-no.

But I too do not understand the "pat" thing.

I just what to be the highest level I can be when I go into the job market. I can understand that experience is important too but EMT jobs are rare so why not apply as a Paramedic.

Beautiful! Education is the foundation you build upon. Going back and pouring your foundation after already constructing the home results in, well... trailer trash. So you are absolutely on the right track with your planning. Just focus on having the highest level of EDUCATION, not the highest level of certification. In medicine, there is a big difference between the two. Too much education is never a bad thing. But, too much experience is one of the biggest problems in EMS.

They need to come up with some sort of pre-course 'dumbass test'. Because new EMT's make me hypertensive. Just thought I'd put that out there.

You know, like some test to weed out the ones that are too fricken stupid to perform as care-givers.

Excellent point. The applicant process used by most schools is horribly inadequate, if not absent. Truth be told, if even reasonable standards were put into place, it would be hard to fill up your classes. A seriously high percentage of EMT wannabes are either intellectually and/or psychologically unfit for the responsibilities the job carries. But really, we don't need even half of the EMTs that we produce every year. And weeding out the dead weight would raise our value.