ABC News says we are ambulance drivers.

[JPINFV]

AS an old timer ambulance driver always ticked me off, but these butt heads who think it takes a degree to save lives really piss me off ,lonestar nailed it.

Do you think that the current educational standards in EMS are high enough then?

[emtsteve13]

What we're called, doesn't really doesn't matter much to me. I haven't found too many who don't know what I do when I say I am an EMT, but I can't say I haven't run across one or two. When I notice that huh look, I simply say I run ambulance. Which usually leads to their next question being " You mean in the back?" I don't take offense to ignorance of what my title means as long as I prove worthy of that title when it counts. Educating the public one patient ( maybe along with their family) at a time is a slow process but aren't they why we got into this to begin with?

[medic_casey]

"Wrong. A degree is not just a random accumulation of semester hours. It is a focused education. It is a testament to a level of maturity and professional commitment that most never achieve because they either don't have what it takes, or else they simply don't have that serious commitment to the profession. If your school is just giving out sheepskins for a given number of hours, your school sucks. "

Whoa...I didn't even come close to saying that my school was giving out an AA for the "random" hours...I was merely pointing out how CLOSE someone comes to having a associate's degree. Jeepers. It was just to illustrate a point.

I agree that we need a fundamental change if EVERYONE, including lay public and those with whom we work, is to understand our profession and what we do. 'Nuf said.

BTW, I have a Master's degree, yet wasn't able to go and get a job in Oregon because I didn't have such AS in paramedicine courses like "Medical Terminology", "CSIM", and "Radio Skills"...wow, that pretty much blew my mind.

[smurfwhore]

Ok..I didn't write this, but I wanted to post this as a reply to this..the author is listed at the end.

Standing in chest deep water,freezing rain falling and stinging as it hits the

exposed parts of my body. Holding her head above water to keep her from drowning until rescue could get there to cut her free---

BUT I'M JUST AN AMBULANCE DRIVER

Comforting a 89 year old woman who just watch me and my partner cover the face of her husband of 64 years as he lay dead in their bathroom floor---

BUT I'M JUST AN AMBULANCE DRIVER

On scene at an mva with mom trapped upside down in her car and her dead sons body laying on top of her without a second thought for my own safety I crawl into the wreckage to take C-spine control and calm the frantic lady---

BUT I'M JUST AN AMBULANCE DRIVER

Called away from my just prepared meal to respond to the middle of B.F.E to a house with no numbers,no porch light on,nobody waiting to signal us in and they bitch because we took too long only to find out the patient left P.O.V ten minutes ago...so we smile and walk away from the verbal lashing only because we are

JUST AMBULANCE DRIVERS

Standing in the middle of the street at midnight on the wrong side of town trying to patch the holes and stop the bleeding of a 19 year old shooting victim with the occasional bullet wizzing past our heads we never break stride because this kids life is in our hands---

BUT I'M JUST AN AMBULNCE DRIVER

Doing chest compressions on a 16 year old girl who decided this life was more than she could take.Her family screaming at us to help as though we are the ones who did this to her. Her lifeless body flailing about as the tube goes in and IV's being started, my arms and back burning from the pain of 30 minutes of CPR never once giving up, hoping she would make it through and over come whatever lead her to this bad decision----

BUT I'M JUST AN AMBULANCE DRIVER

Death is all around me and still I go home to live my life

I get kicked, hit, spit on, bled on, puked on...

I look into the eyes of a lifeless child at 7am and by 8 am I'm holding my child a little tighter and they know nothing about what happened.

I have hundreds of hours of classroom time years of in the field experience

I have challenged death and won

I've helped the helpless

I've neglected my family for yours

I find comfort in complete chaos

I eat cold meals if I eat at all

I work with no sleep for days at a time

I miss birthdays,holidays and school functions

I put myself in harms way for a total stranger on a daily basis

ALL BECAUSE I AM JUST AN AMBULANCE DRIVER

CHRIS INGLE AMBULANCE DRIVER/EMT

That is so tacky. I hate tacky shit like that, esp. EMS tributes, slide shows with enya songs, EMS prayers, the 'if you only knew' poems. If you want everyone to call you a hero, you're going to have to become a fireman or a police officer. This crap just makes me want to hit someone. I don't see the need to romanticize or try to make people shed a tear for what we do.

[Just Plain Ruff]

That is so tacky. I hate tacky shit like that, esp. EMS tributes, slide shows with enya songs, EMS prayers, the 'if you only knew' poems. If you want everyone to call you a hero, you're going to have to become a fireman or a police officer. This crap just makes me want to hit someone. I don't see the need to romanticize or try to make people shed a tear for what we do.

it's good to see that the words used in the above quote matches their user name.

How did Smurfwhore get past the filters for new names.

[Just Plain Ruff]

AS an old timer ambulance driver always ticked me off, but these butt heads who think it takes a degree to save lives really piss me off ,lonestar nailed it.

Just how much or how little education do you need to save lives? Way to offend about 40 people on your 4th post. Excellent job.

[coni]

ambulance driver....who cares the ones who matter know that truth!

sometimes i like driving more than dealing with people

[Just Plain Ruff]

I agree after 10 shifts of working as the medic I relished the shift that I got to just drive and the ability to leave the techin to someone else. Sounds like greyhound. Leave the drivin to us.

[WANTYNU]

ambulance driver....who cares the ones who matter know that truth!

sometimes i like driving more than dealing with people

Because coni, some folks here rely on their jobs to feed their family, and (hopefully) pay their mortgage, and in most cases for far less than their counterparts in PD and FD do.

What is in a name?

Will Shakespeare wrote: in Romeo and Juliet "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". - (Act II, Scene II)…

Ambulance driver does not begin to touch the description of what we do, and what we need to accomplish in order to have the privilege to do so.

Names are very important, especially when the public has neither understanding nor perception of who we are and what we do.

I won’t delve into American history on what a “Name” can do, one just needs to look at recent movements focused at doing away with certain “Names”, for evidence that more than just a few people think a “Name” produces a stereotype, which in turn can be very damaging to the people it is associated with.

There is a very old saying, ‘Perception is EVERYTHING…”

Be Safe,

WANTYNU

P.S.:

Just how much or how little education do you need to save lives? Way to offend about 40 people on your 4th post. Excellent job.

The answer: obviously none…. Just push the stuff with the purple cap when your patient is blue…

Grananimals for ambulance drivers…

-w

[triemal04]

BTW, I have a Master's degree, yet wasn't able to go and get a job in Oregon because I didn't have such AS in paramedicine courses like "Medical Terminology", "CSIM", and "Radio Skills"...wow, that pretty much blew my mind.

Wow. You have a master's. Good for you. Takes a lot of work to get that. Now out of curiosity, what is that degree in? I hope it's at least somewhat related to the medical field, otherwise you're blowing so much smoke it's embarrassing.

As for the courses...you probably also left out A&P 1,2,3 EMS intro, rescue, biology, chem, and unless your tacky little "radio skills" was communication (ie how to write a chart without looking like an idiot) that too. Along with some others. Lots of others.

Oregon (along with Kansas and maybe somewhere else now) requires EVERY paramedic who was certified after 1999 to have an associates degree. Doesn't matter where you come from. Does that mean that there are no medic mills in Oregon? Yes. Does that mean that people have to really want to be paramedics and be willing to put in the time/effort? Yes. Does that mean that the standards are higher? Yes. Does this help to enforce those standards? Yes. Does that mean there are fewer mother-may-I systems? Yes. Does that mean that an Oregon paramedic is trained in more than just monkey skills? Yes. Are all these things good? Hell yes. And hopefully this is how it'll be nationally in the future. (if I'm really lucky it'll happen in my lifetime...I hope)

If you don't like that, that's really just to bad. There's plenty of other states out there with minimal requirements to become a paramedic, feel free to go there. (california is just to the south) Personally, I'd rather stay somewhere where it is required to get an actual education before you go out and start treating people in the the street.

/rant.