I did a fast track program, and I dont think that my education is any less than someone who did it in 2 years. Same info, you just have to catch on to things VERY quickly, and understand it a lot quicker. A 2 year program is a little information at a time, and you have more time to get things down and understand them.
I went to a "fast track" program, although not as "fast" as yours. And I used to believe just as you do. I didn't think I needed all that book learnin' just to start IVs and drop tubes. My patch was as red as everyone else's. I could not possibly have been more wrong.
The state sets only the absolute bare
minimum of contact hours. That is exactly what your program (and the one I attended) meets. They typical associates degree program at least doubles those hours (for that matter, so do most college based EMT programs). That is twice the education. Then you add in the foundation of thirty hours of physical and social sciences upon which all that practice is based, and the education is quadrupled. The result is a practitioner that is four times as qualified as a fast track tech medic. It's simple, indisputable math.
You will never hear a medic -- or any other healthcare professional, like a nurse, RT, PT, or even x-ray tech -- who actually has that education saying that they didn't need all that A&P and Microbiology, and Chemistry, and Psychology to be a good practitioner. The only people you hear saying that are those that don't have it. What does that tell you? The truth is, unless you have received that extra education, you simply are not qualified to determine if you really needed it or not. You don't know what you don't know. And neither did I.
My fast track was exactly thirty years ago this year, and it was the exact same hours as your class this year. Although the curriculum content has increased substantially in the last three decades, with a lot more information now being required, they are still teaching it in one-third the time it takes to train a barber, and half the time it takes to train a nail technician. Do you really think that can be done without sacrificing a great deal of important information? Again, do the math.
Just like me, if you ever actually go back and get the scientific foundational courses that you should have gotten as prerequisites, you'll quickly realize just how much you do not know, and you'll suddenly be even less confident than you are now, realizing that your current practice is just a technical shell of the profession it represents. If you're as smart as I think you are, you'll realize how you are fooling yourself with this current line of thinking, and just like me, you'll wish you had done it before paramedic school, not as an after thought.
Saying you missed nothing by taking a fast track course is like saying a mechanic doesn't need to know anything about internal combustion and hydraulics so long as he is taught to change oil and spark plugs. By choosing a 600 hour course, you missed out on the entire scientific foundation of your practice, and to those with a greater education, it will show in your practice. The difference in critical thinking and diagnostic skills between the two practitioners is just that obvious.
An accelerated course may be the same length in hours as many other tech schools that are dragged out over a year. And it may not be significantly superior to some of the poorer associates degree programs that have an inadequate prerequisite list and bad instructors. There are a lot of cheesy degree programs out there, with a horrible course plan, for sure. But not all patches are created equal, no matter how badly we want to think so. You may be able to put your "skills" up against any other, but that's where the comparison stops.
And being a great paramedic is not about being better than the next guy. It is about being the best that YOU can possibly be. And right now, you are not nearly as good as you would have been with four times the education. Your level of professional understanding is much, much less than it would have been with a better educational preparation. More education = more understanding. More understanding = better practitioner. Period.
The sad thing is that most people who attend the accelerated programs are the people who should not be doing so. They aren't well educated or transitioning healthcare professionals. They are people who are simply in a hurry to get a patch as soon as possible so they can get a fire job. More than half the time, they don't even really want to be a paramedic. And even those that do are generally just looking for a shortcut to glory because they either don't understand that more education = better education, or else they simply fear an educational commitment.
All that said, I am not opposed to the accelerated concept. I actually often recommend accelerated paramedic courses to those inquiring. As someone already mentioned, such accelerated courses are recommended for transitioning other healthcare professionals (nurses, RTs, PTs, MTs, corpsmen, etc...) who already hold a solid foundation of prerequisite physical and social sciences (A&P, Microbiology, Psychology, Sociology). Those are the people who can take a purely technical training approach to paramedicine and easily translate it into a competent, professional practice. Someone with a biological degree, step to the head of the class and go straight to an accelerated course. You'll do fine. But for the average high school grad with no foundation, I simply cannot recommend any accelerated course. The results are the type of practitioners that hold us back in the 1970s. Don't make the same mistake that I did (although, in my own embarrassed defense, I didn't choose the school. It's where the FD sent everyone).
Sure, most anyone can cram, squeak through a standardized test written at the 8th grade level, and sew on a patch. The Houston Fire Department proves that every day. But no, don't fool yourself into believing that the medic that is produced by that process is anywhere near the quality that s/he should be or would be with greater educational effort.
