Degree talk from the man who wrote the book on EMS.

SandpitMedic

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Dr. Bledsoe's recent article makes some great points here. He was my medical director for sometime in Las Vegas. It was interesting to bring him patients in the trauma center, being the man who wrote the very textbooks I studied in P school... Intimidating to say the least as a baby medic.
I am not a fan of his anti-HEMS perspective, but other than that I agree with a lot of his ideas and philosophies. He's like most here in the arguments and debates we have had- for it and against it.

An interesting take. I think the right idea is to mandate AAS degrees at the NREMT level and everything else will follow, but I'm not interested in re-hashing that debate right now. I went back and I got an EMS AAS after I was a certified paramedic, and it didnt do much for me besides provide pre-reqs for PA school. Being one guy with a degree does nothing, but ensuring everyone has one at a baseline is how the ball starts rolling.

 

DrParasite

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Suffice it to say, I was curious where he would stand on the matter... After reading the article, I agree with his conclusion, but think his reasoning is questionable at best, since it focuses too much on is EMS healthcare, public safety, or public health, versus what benefit the degree will provide to the paramedic or the profession.

Oh, and he didn't write THE book on EMS, he wrote A book on EMS. Plenty of others have written EMS textbooks, Dr. Bledsoe's isn't the first, and won't be the last.
 
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SandpitMedic

SandpitMedic

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Touche, but he wrote my books. ;)
 

DesertMedic66

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Suffice it to say, I was curious where he would stand on the matter... After reading the article, I agree with his conclusion, but think his reasoning is questionable at best, since it focuses too much on is EMS healthcare, public safety, or public health, versus what benefit the degree will provide to the paramedic or the profession.

Oh, and he didn't write THE book on EMS, he wrote A book on EMS. Plenty of others have written EMS textbooks, Dr. Bledsoe's isn't the first, and won't be the last.
While he may not have written “the book on EMS” he is arguably the most well known EMS author.

I think his argument on what is EMS classified as is relevant and applicable for the degree vs no degree option.

The majority of public safety personnel do not have degrees until you start to get into the leadership/management roles whereas with healthcare the vast majority do have college levels degrees.
 

RedBlanketRunner

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NomadicMedic

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ExpatMedic0

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He has some good points and I think many of us have touched on them before. There are several large factors to overcome, but I almost guarantee this will be a degree profession as times goes on. How long it will take I don't know, but reimbursement/billing is huge factor as well other actors in the public safety and healthcare arena who have dug their heels into most stakeholders and policy makers at national and regional levels and have much deeper pockets than EMS.
 
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