Are Medics Esentially RNs In rigs

Akulahawk said:
Congratulations! I just noticed the change in your signature as well. Good work!
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Thank you. I'm usually not into the whole
Alphabet soup signature but I couldn't resist haha how much longer do you have?
 
Probably TMI but...

Chase said:
Thank you. I'm usually not into the whole
Alphabet soup signature but I couldn't resist haha how much longer do you have?
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I went from about 6 months to ADN to about a year for LVN... followed by more time waiting for a "Career Mobility" option to ADN - about 2.5 -3 years out from now. Believe me, I'd MUCH rather not be having to make that change. I have some time before I commit to that course. If I take a bit of a gamble, I might have a seat in the Fall 2013 2nd Semester, which puts me at about 2 years from now to ADN.

In short, I went from "is it much further Papa Smurf? Not much further..." to "Is it much further Papa Smurf? YES, IT IS!!!" :angry:

I really just need to get out of my current job and back to being an Active Paramedic, and that won't happen until I'm out of school, for scheduling reasons. At least the VN program will be a LOT easier to mesh with work than going back through the ADN program, and I certainly hope to get to be able to work as an LVN and a Paramedic while waiting for things to start back up again.

Not quite the timeline I had in mind even as of about a week ago... but it's what I have to work with and transfer to another program isn't a realistic option. If I can find a way to come up with $70k, I might be able to afford to do an ABSN program... Doing it this way preserves my ability to get a BSN from the local 4 year university. And I will get that BSN.

I'm just done working Security.
 
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Chase said:
Thank you. I'm usually not into the whole
Alphabet soup signature but I couldn't resist haha how much longer do you have?
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sure...sure... next you will be adding BLS, ACLS, PALS, and some other alphabet soup after your name until your post nominal is longer than all the letters in your name.

;) :rofl:
 
drose said:
I've heard this a lot, friends always tell me that Medics are basically RNs In riggs. If not, what's the difference?
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The Field of nursing is very broad, your friends are referencing only ER nursing. Which is the CLOSEST thing to us, but it is NOT the same.

RNs and Medics are very different, from Education to Job function to Purpose
 
Veneficus said:
sure...sure... next you will be adding BLS, ACLS, PALS, and some other alphabet soup after your name until your post nominal is longer than all the letters in your name.

;) :rofl:
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At one point, my stuff would have looked somewhat like this:

Akulahawk, EMT-P, BS, BLS, ACLS, PALS, PHTLS

Chase's postnomial is probably going to be longer than mine for a few years.
 
JPINFV said:
ems_motivational_poster_1_for_web.jpg
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Thank God this has been resurrected!

I've missed it for a while.
 
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Akulahawk said:
At one point, my stuff would have looked somewhat like this:

Akulahawk, EMT-P, BS, BLS, ACLS, PALS, PHTLS

Chase's postnomial is probably going to be longer than mine for a few years.
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I think I will stop at - Chase CRNA, DNAP, B.A.M.F. :ph34r:
 
sir.shocksalot said:
Actually, I agree. However the typical paramedic holds a certificate, the typical nurse holds an associates degree (and a BSN is becoming more common, and currently I think it's the unofficial minimum for entry into the profession these days).
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This is a very reasonable and well-thought out post. In my region this associate's versus certificate distinction doesn't really exist. Outside of the US few countries use associate's degrees. Our RNs are either 3-year diploma educated or 4-year BScN educated. Our paramedics have a two year diploma on top of a 6 month to one year EMT program. A very few have a four year Bachelor's degree in EMS.

Certainly the RNs, on average, have more education, but the gap isn't that big.

Actually I think ICU nurses are very distant from what we do in EMS, I think the typical paramedic, including myself, is very uncomfortable with many of the things going on with patients in an ICU. Multiple drips, vents, wound vacs, chest tubes, IABP, blood products, etc etc. Many of these things fall way outside the normal paramedic's scope of practice, even many CCT paramedics aren't able to transport these things without a nurse present.
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I think the argument that I tried to present (however clumsily), is that paramedicine is not that far removed from nursing, and that it could be considered a subspecialty of nursing -- as it is in some countries. I picked the examples of RN and ICU nurses because when I talk to these people it seems like we're talking the same language and have a common background.

I'm not trying to argue that they're the same, although I think there's some overlap in these areas. I'm certainly not comfortable trouble-shooting a balloon-pump, although the couple of times I've had to deal with them I've often had a physician in addition to an ICU nurse. Chest tubes, arterial lines, and blood products are all things that I've been trained in, even if I haven't had a lot of experience with them recently. Some of my peers encounter and manage these daily.

My experience is that there's a tendency for people in EMS to underestimate nursing due to dealing with a large number of people who work outside of acute care, in long-term care settings.

As far as flight nurses go, I actually think having a paramedic on the helicopter is silly. There are so many paramedics that become nurses that you would think there would be enough nurses with paramedic experience that they shouldn't bother hiring paramedics. I'm starting to think that paramedics are only on the helicopter because they are a cheap extra pair of hands. I have seen some flight teams when they are on inter-facility flights take an RRT instead of a medic. I would hate to be a flight medic honestly... every flight that goes out goes with a nurse, but not always a paramedic.
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The local experience here is different. Our flights are predominantly paramedic-paramedic or paramedic-EMT, with very few RN spots. I think this is at detriment to the patient and that these calls should be run paramedic-RN. A good ICU nurse is worth their weight in gold on a complex interfacility ICU-ICU run, but a paramedic has skills that a flight nurse usually lacks when it comes to scene calls.


Completely agree, if we just want to count straight educational time. In fact an AAS in Paramedicine and an ADN are very similar to each other, I think the ADN just has pathophysiology, human growth and development, and nutrition that separates it from most paramedic degrees. But how many Paramedics have an AAS vs how many nurses have an ADN? How many paramedics have bachelors degrees in their field?
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We don't really have the ADN here. Our least trained RNs are three years, and as you talked about earlier, its increasingly moving to BScN entry-to-practice. However, our least trained paramedics are also very close to 3 years, so the gap isn't as big here. My experience has been that nursing education produces a generalist graduate nurse who then does further training courses to be prepared to work in a given setting, e.g. CCRN. In contrast, the paramedic is trained to do "one thing", or at best, "a few things", but already has that specialisation, at the expense of a wider perspective on health care. Paramedic education could definitely be expanded.

But to answer the OP, no. Paramedics are not like nurses in an ambulance. In spite of how similar ER nurses' daily routine looks like a paramedic's, the field of nursing is worlds different than paramedicine. One is not better than the other, some nurses are not suited to being in emergent situations, just like paramedics are not suited for the long-term, holistic care of patients.
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I think this is a great perspective.

As a side note, why do we constantly have to measure penises with nurses? Are we just that insecure with ourselves?
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I think so.

I hope I'm not dragging us back onto track in a thread where everyone has already breathed a sigh of relief that we've moved on.
 
systemet said:
Our RNs are either 3-year diploma educated or 4-year BScN educated. Our paramedics have a two year diploma on top of a 6 month to one year EMT program. A very few have a four year Bachelor's degree in EMS.
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Hey System, what country?
 
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