Honestly, this is hard for me to believe. What about a good ICU nurse? Or a nurse working in a Pediatric floor? These RN's must have good judgement making skills and medical skills.
Also granted that the majority of Paramedics who had a halfway decent program and actually learned stuff thought it was relatively easy. Most people consider the NREMT a "joke" in regards to its difficulty.
Like you said earlier, you can't take an apple out of the barrel and judge the whole barrel based on that one. Your program is what we strive for, but sadly they aren't a standard practice.
I'm pretty sure in the state of Colorado the EMT-B must be I.V. certified to do some of those things. If the LPN is certified, he/she can do all of the above and I bet more. And LPN's can assess patients, and are especially trained in focused and initial ones. Most of the time they are checked...
I know your spelling isn't good, but for future reference it is respiratory emergency.
Now, on to the pneumonia. Of course the patient could present other symptoms that don't include chest pain, heck, the patient may not even complain of chest pain. Other common symptoms include coughing...