Beware iof NEMSA!

[SWM_Medic]

EMS companies need union representation. Granted I agree you can ask for too much. I just feel as professionals we need higher pay and better benefits. How many of you out there who are strictly EMT's and working full time can say that you can retire from your job. Is that really to much to ask.

[Dustdevil]

I just feel as professionals we need higher pay and better benefits. How many of you out there who are strictly EMT's and working full time can say that you can retire from your job. Is that really to much to ask.

Yes, for an EMT it is. That's not a "professional" or a profession. It's just a blue-collar labour job. If you want to be treated like a professional, you need to get a professional education and a professional career. It just amazes me that anybody goes into EMS with three weeks of first aid training and honestly believes they are a "professional" with a stable and rewarding career ahead of them. I mean seriously, anybody with that assumption is demonstrating poor critical reasoning skills.

[SWM_Medic]

Dustdevil, how full of yourself are you?

I don't know about everybody but I still consider myself an EMT even though my license says Paramedic. Being a full time paramedic is a profession. I went to school as long as any nurse. I will give you that there are some four year nursing programs out there, but from what I hear those last two years are just admin and management stuff. Yes I want to be treated like a professional. I act like one and I perform like one. There was a time when people looked down on firemen and policemen. You know what changed? They stood up and demanded respect. Today those are the kinda jobs you can retire from. I feel paramedics deserve the same thing. We need to stop accepting that we get crappy pay and benefits. We have become complacent in our station in life.

One final thought. Before you start blaming NEMSA for bailing on a bunch of EMT's. You need to realize that a union is only as strong as its local. The national end provides you the tools and they let you take care of yourself. Although if you need help they are there.

[JPINFV]

I will give you that there are some four year nursing programs out there, but from what I hear those last two years are just admin and management stuff.

Not to pick only on you, because I've heard that said before (particularly about 4 year EMS degrees), but so what if it is? How can we expect to change the system or complain about pay if we shy away from the very positions (admin and management) that have the power to change the system and pay more?

[SWM_Medic]

Moving into a management position doesn't mean that we can change things. To get better pay and benefit's you gotta go after the guy holding the purse. Unless you start your own ems agency, you can't take his job. There is nothing wrong with going that extra mile to get the degree, I'm all for it. My point is you don't need a piece of paper to consider yourself a professional. It's not defined as what you have already done, its what your doing now.

[Dustdevil]

Dustdevil, how full of yourself are you?

I don't know about everybody but I still consider myself an EMT even though my license says Paramedic. Being a full time paramedic is a profession. I went to school as long as any nurse.

My apologies, as I was not intending to paint you with that statement. I realise you are a paramedic. But you specifically referred to EMTs, so that is what I was correctly addressing. Again, by using the term "you", I was not meaning you in particular.

I will give you that there are some four year nursing programs out there, but from what I hear those last two years are just admin and management stuff.

You should research more and hear less. In most cases, for most BSN programmes, you would be wrong. Most of that extra education is patient care related. There is very rarely any management in a BSN degree, because the BSN is considered the entry level of professional nursing practice.

This is just one of those silly notions perpetuated by those who don't have what it takes to further their education in order to justify it, when in fact, they don't have a clue. Interestingly enough, it is the same stupid argument I hear from all the tech-school medics who think that the only difference between them and the degreed medics is an underwater basketweaving course, which is the height of ignorance.

There was a time when people looked down on firemen and policemen. You know what changed? They stood up and demanded respect.

No. 9/11 is what changed that, and that is rapidly fading. Otherwise, firemen and cops are still just uneducated, civil servant labourers who are beneath them to a great many citizens.

Today those are the kinda jobs you can retire from.

Don't be silly. You can retire from janitorial and sanitation jobs too. That doesn't create any public respect for trash men. You clearly have no understanding of what respect is and how it is earned. Simply being a civil servant with a uniform and a pension isn't worthy of respect or praise. And if society thought it was, then the military would get a lot more respect.

I feel paramedics deserve the same thing.

Not yet, they don't. Considering we have miserably FAILED to progress our field beyond where it began thirty-five years ago, we are lucky to have any public trust or respect at all. With the majority of the country being serviced by either EMT-Bs, volunteer hobbyists, or four-month paramedics, we as a profession have done zero to earn any kind of professional consideration yet.

We need to stop accepting that we get crappy pay and benefits. We have become complacent in our station in life.

Well, I agree with that, but it goes back to what I just said. It is us who has FAILED to thrive. We have allowed the educational standards to remain so low that we are all immediately replaceable by any nimrod with a GED and 120 hours of night school. We have fought elevated standards for so long that it has put us on the wrong side of the supply and demand equation. And that is exactly what Rid is talking about. Perhaps if you -- and a lot of others -- took some of those management classes that you think are so useless, you would have a clearer understanding of why we are where we are, and what can be done about it. But right now, you sound just like all those basics who think that more skills need to be "given" to them simply because they want them. Just like those skills, respect and rewards have to be earned. And the only tangible way to earn them is through education. There is nothing -- no other way, unions be damned -- that our jobs will ever be elevated to the level of a respected profession. You can whine, bitch, bash nurses, and pay union dues until Jimmy Hoffa comes home, and it's going to do ZERO to put us any closer to your dreams. We have tried all of those things, and they have all FAILED for thirty-five years. The only thing we have not tried is education. And it is the one common denominator in the professional progress of every other profession on earth. It is our one and only hope. Period.

And, along those same lines, you are wrong about being able to change things through moving into management. If you can't figure out how, then you could really use some of that edumacation you don't think is important.

[JPINFV]

Moving into a management position doesn't mean that we can change things. To get better pay and benefit's you gotta go after the guy holding the purse. Unless you start your own ems agency, you can't take his job. There is nothing wrong with going that extra mile to get the degree, I'm all for it. My point is you don't need a piece of paper to consider yourself a professional. It's not defined as what you have already done, its what your doing now.

You're right that moving into management isn't a panacea. At the same time, being in management gives you more legitimacy to advocate for change than being an entry level worker. Be that change lobbying internally to either officially [written policy], or unofficially [simply pass over applicants] to change hiring requirements. If you are involved with instruction, then there is nothing stopping you from requiring more from your students than the minimum. Similarly, if you market and advertise your product (students) properly, those higher requirements might mean your students stand a better chance at being hired (employers know what they're going to get before hand).

Similarly, if you are involved with the training/QI department, then you have some control over how your employees are trained and treating. At the very least you have more legitimacy via your position over the other employers.

Change won't happen overnight, nor will it happen quickly. Change won't happen as long as everyone sits on their hands waiting for someone else to act though.

As far as the paper determining if you are a professional or not. True, it does not decide that, but it, or the lack there of, might decide where your career ladder ends.

*NOTE: The term "you" is generally meant as a generic "you."

[SWM_Medic]

I agree with you dustdevil on some things. I really don't feel we have failed to thrive over the last 35 years. In the beginning ems was just grab the pt and throw them in the back of the hurse and go. We actually start treatment now, and in some cases provide care so the pt doesn't even need transport to the ed. I feel we are moving forward, but people still see us as those load and go guys. We need to change out public face. The national registry was a great step in the right direction, but we need to educate the public. As far as the respect police and fire got, they had that before 9/11, it's just more widely known now. I didn't mean to sound like the management classes were useless, but good managers are something you are not something you can learn to be. My ops manager went to all those classes and got his degree in buisness management and he has the worst management skills of anyone I know. Anyway I am getting off topic of the thread so I am done. Thank you for your input.

[jessicaCNAEMT]

If you work in health-care, I don't care if you are an RN, LPN, Medic, EMT, CNA, MA, or PA. You are not paid for all the work you do. You go above and beyond on a daily basis and get treated like garbage. It comes with the job. You continually pick up slack of the trash that gets to hang around because the union protects them. And frankly if you don't like the pay in one area, move to an area with better pay or switch to another company. Acadian is offering a $20,000 sign bonus for a 24 month commitment.

[Dustdevil]

I really don't feel we have failed to thrive over the last 35 years. In the beginning ems was just grab the pt and throw them in the back of the hurse and go. We actually start treatment now, and in some cases provide care so the pt doesn't even need transport to the ed.

Thirty-five years ago, EMERGENCY! had been out for two seasons. Now, three and a half decades later, a large part of the country doesn't even have that level of care yet. And a huge number of the medics in this country receive no more education than they did in 1972. How the hell do you call that progress?

I feel we are moving forward, but people still see us as those load and go guys. We need to change out public face.

The problem is that you're focusing on image instead of operational reality. We have not progressed one bit. Medicine has progressed. And the changes in our practices reflect those changes. But simply following the directions of the medical community as they change does not count as "progress" on our part. Progress on our part would be something that resulted from something that WE have done, not from just following the latest research done by physicians. Yes, you are completely wrong about the progress of EMS. We have not. And therefore, we have done nothing to earn anybody's respect. We continue to do nothing except the minimum necessary to get by.

The national registry was a great step in the right direction, but we need to educate the public.

No. We need to educate ourselves! The public is not the problem. WE are the problem. Do you seriously not get that? FAILURE to get that is exactly why we cannot progress. We have only ourselves to blame. There is no education in the world that is going to convince the public that people with less education than a barber or a nail technician or nurses aide is a "professional" deserving of their respect.

I didn't mean to sound like the management classes were useless, but good managers are something you are not something you can learn to be. My ops manager went to all those classes and got his degree in buisness management and he has the worst management skills of anyone I know.

Irrelevant. An idiot with educational tools is indeed as useless as an intelligent man with no educational tools. That's no excuse to dismiss education. It takes both to be effective. And you should also note that there is a vast difference between business management and public or healthcare administration. Your buddy went to the wrong school for that. He went to school to learn to turn a profit, not to administrate professional healthcare.