However, a nurse (even doctors) must be certified and licensed as an EMT to work in the field.
Uh, no. By doctors I assume you mean physicians, who are licensed to practice medicine and require nothing else to practice medicine anywhere. A physician doesn't need a 120 hour certificate to place a bandage on someone in the field, if a physician so chooses he/she may perform open-heart surgery in the field (granted he/she will face the music, but not for some breach in "protocol").
Don't fluff your certificate to be what it isn't. Also, most states don't require anything special for flight nurses to perform pre-hospital medicine other than a doctors thumbs up on standing orders.
Here's a better question: How are we not?
Nursing is regulated by a State board of nursing, which is full of nurses.
Paramedics are regulated by ??? (various agencies depending on state), which is full of nurses, physicians, paramedics and EMTs.
Nurses are licensed to practice nursing.
Paramedics are certified and require physician oversight/approval to do anything. (granted a small difference, but one profession regulates themselves, the other doesn't).
Nursing requires the completion of a national exam that is consistent across the country, and interchangeable among states.
Paramedic knowledge and certification exams vary by AREA CODE.
Most/all nursing text books are written by nurses.
Most/all paramedic text books are written by nurses and physicians.
There are positions in clinical nursing above bedside RN.
There are positions in the fire-department that are completely non-medical above paramedic.
There are nursing certifications that allow completely independent practice.
There are paramedic certifications that are barely worth the paper they are printed on.
The average education of a Nurse (US) is an associates degree.
The average education of a paramedic (US) is just a tad above high school.
Nurses are educated to provide care in a variety of fields.
Paramedic are educated to provide care for short periods of time in select emergencies.
Linuss, don't get me wrong, I want to get paid more, but we have to earn it. Nurses are on their feet in the ER for 12 hours a day. I am typically on my *** 9 hours a day, 3 hours a day I might be standing on a roadside, in a house or where ever doing work. It took a year of moderate work to get my paramedic cert, my RN friend went to school for 4 years and had to complete algebra, chem, a+p, etc etc.
Just because we can often do a lot of the things an RN can do in the ER, doesn't mean we can do all the other things an RN can do. Paramedics CAN NOT work in an ICU. We CAN NOT work in a burn unit. We CAN NOT work in an OR. The list goes on. We just don't have the generalized education required to do all the little things in healthcare that are required of nurses. Most state boards of health won't even allow paramedics to handle blood products. Just because you watched RNs in the ER push all the meds you can push, doesn't mean we have earned the same pay.
