Cert'd EMT with questions about P-medic School

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Paulsen7158

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Ok, so I have had my EMT Cert for a few months now, but I live in Northern California and just finding somewhere to get experience is incredibly difficult. What I want your opinions about is, NCTI paramedic program allows people into their program without experience as a working EMT, they recommend it but its not mandatory.

Please give my your input on the fact of the matter!!!

ANYTHING WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!
 
do it. I don't see a problem. You will need to work harder so you can work on your BLS skills but it can be done. BLS is not rocket science.
 
Highly recommend it, no prior bad habits to break. Now with that said, understand you may have to study and practice a little harder than those with experience.

Good luck!

R/r 911
 
Thanks alot for the input.. Another question is what everyone thinks about NCTI I have heard both good and bad things about them!!!
 
what is NCTI? Is this a paramedic school? If it is, I obvioulsy have no idea if they are good or bad. You need to speak to employers who have hired people from that program.
 
That's what you have us for. To reiterate.
 
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I agree with the others so far. Go ahead and get signed up. I'm doing the same thing right now, actually my state EMT-B license came the day before paramedic class started. I can definitely tell in our class who has experience and who doesn't but if you're willing to do the work it's not impossible.

The more important thing I would recommend is an A&P class. My course did not have a pre-req of a college A&P course so I didn't take one and boy am I hurting because of it. In my textbook A&P covered about 200 pages and all 200 of those pages are critical information not only to know but to understand. 200 pages isn't enough to learn all you should know about the body and it's systems but boy trying to understand that particular 200 pages in the 2 days we took to go over it will sure make your head spin.

In a standard A&P class you would be reading a lot more than 200 pages and learn a lot more in depth than the textbook will teach you but A&P is one of the building blocks that everything in paramedic stems up from. The better understanding you have of it the easier the rest of the class will be.
 
At first glance I had some respect for NCTI since they at least stated they required A&P as an entrance requirement. Of course this is a private "career school" that costs a considerale amount of money with one of those just sign here loan options for 5 digits. But then I actually read their A&P requirements:

http://www.ncti-online.com/faq/westcoast_faq.cgi?answer=1119463641

Typically, an approved Anatomy & Physiology class must be a college-level course containing BOTH Anatomy AND PHYSIOLOGY, which the candidate has taken and successfully passed within the last five years. NCTI offers an accelerated pre-paramedic Anatomy & Physiology class which is designed to help prepare students for their entrance into paramedic school. The course is five days long and focuses on the related studies involved within paramedicine. NCTI also accepts several outside college courses as a means to fulfill this pre-requisite.
Click to expand...

Run fast from a school that promises to teach you A&P in 5 days.

California's Community/City Colleges cost $20 - $22/credit hour.

Example of program in SF:
http://www.ccsf.edu/Departments/

At 50 credit hours or just over $1000 for tuition, the cost will be about 10x less than NCTI. If you decide EMS is not for you, only your costs for the semester is loss and not a hideous loan that could follow you for years.

There are several city/community colleges in California. There are also several ambulance services as well as EDs that may hire you. I would suggest you go to one of the community colleges and start with real college A&P if you don't already have it.
 
I forgot to add firecoins brought up a good point about talking to prospective employers and ask what school they prefer to hire students from. Unfortunately I didn't do that until after I had paid for my course. I'm not saying mine is a bad course or I'll be a bad medic but the exact way the local service put it to me was go to xxxx school (my school) if you want to become a paramedic. Go to xxxx school (other school) if you want to be a darn good paramedic your first day out of the classroom.
 
we've kicked this issue around quite a bit. everybodies opinions on it are well documented in the old threads.
 
Interesting...

idea about talking to potential employers, until you run into someone that I spoke with a while back. She claimed that if a person had graduated from one particular program she wouldn't even consider them for employment. Interesting theory considering that she herself had graduated from a much lower regarded program than the one she was denigrating. I might add that the one she disliked is considered by a lot of people to be the hardest program to get into in this area. Luckily, she wasn't in a position to actually hire anyone but she was able to make recommendations which given her attitude was bad enough.

I got the feeling that she was projecting just a little bit of anger towards not having been accepted but I could be wrong.

My point is to be very wary of individuals who make blanket statements about the quality of an EMT or a Paramedic program without the benefit of having attended it. Having said that, the for-profit private schools are almost universally overpriced and have financial incentives to get their students to pass, not to be trained or educated, just passed.

I might add that virtually every EMT who works for a private company that I've ever spoken with has only harsh words for the other companies in the area, apparently only that company which currently employs you is worthy of praise. It must be hard to deal with when some of these guys switch companies...

John E.
 
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