Florida Paramedic

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Miss Melanie

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Hey everyone, I am in need of some information regarding Florida Paramedics.
I am a Primary care paramedic in Ontario (currently working PT). I am trying to figure out if it is even possible for a Canadian to get a work visa and be able to find work as a paramedic in Florida.
any information is greatly appreciated.

Cheers.
 
Miss Melanie said:
Hey everyone, I am in need of some information regarding Florida Paramedics.
I am a Primary care paramedic in Ontario (currently working PT). I am trying to figure out if it is even possible for a Canadian to get a work visa and be able to find work as a paramedic in Florida.
any information is greatly appreciated.

Cheers.
Click to expand...

What part of florida are you looking at?
 
I'm looking to work in either fort Lauderdale or Miami.
 
To do 911 EMS in Florida (90% of it, anyway), you will have to be a firefighter as well, which means you will have to pay to put yourself through a Florida fire academy before you can apply for a job.

Also, I'm fairly sure that you must be an ACP to challenge the NREMT-P exam. Florida doesn't have an EMT-I, so I think a PCP would correspond to a US EMT-Basic.

I looked at jobs in Florida and decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

That being said, I'm sure it's doable, it will just a decent amount of time and money.
 
Look to north FL. Hardly any FD services. Mainly county third services. If you can obtain NREMT-P, you can challenge FL state test.
 
reaper said:
Look to north FL. Hardly any FD services. Mainly county third services. If you can obtain NREMT-P, you can challenge FL state test.
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mind citing a source for this? as far as I know florida doesn't accept reciprocity from anywhere. and the NREMT website doesn't list florida as one of the states that uses the NREMT-P.
 
Miss Melanie said:
I'm looking to work in either fort Lauderdale or Miami.
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Those are are dominated by fire departments, so you would need to be a fire medic to do 911.

rescue1 said:
To do 911 EMS in Florida (90% of it, anyway), you will have to be a firefighter as well, which means you will have to pay to put yourself through a Florida fire academy before you can apply for a job.

Also, I'm fairly sure that you must be an ACP to challenge the NREMT-P exam. Florida doesn't have an EMT-I, so I think a PCP would correspond to a US EMT-Basic.

I looked at jobs in Florida and decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

That being said, I'm sure it's doable, it will just a decent amount of time and money.
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a PCP is equal almost to a critical care paramedic in most places in the US, I believe they have a wider scope than most Paramedics in florida.
 
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I never thought of North Florida, ill take a look into jacksonville and see what I can find.
 
Jacksonville is FD. Look towards the panhandle area.
 
Hunter said:
mind citing a source for this? as far as I know florida doesn't accept reciprocity from anywhere. and the NREMT website doesn't list florida as one of the states that uses the NREMT-P.
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FL does not use NREMT for medic. They do allow an NREMT-P to challenge the state test. Any out of state medic that holds NREMT or a state Cert can challenge the FL state test. As long as you can prove your training equals FL standards. It is all on the state website.
 
I think all the large Florida cities have fire department EMS, though it's been a little bit since I checked. If you want to escape the Ontario winter, you could try Texas as well. They have a bunch of quality EMS agencies. I think Linuss works for MedStar in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, he might be able to shed some light.

Still no idea about the work visa though.
 
rescue1 said:
An Ontario PCP? I think you're confusing it with ACP. A Primary Care Paramedic has a scope around the US AEMT. They have no heart monitoring, no ET tube, and only a small list of medications.

https://www.rppeo.ca/public/page/title/Paramedicine_in_Ontario
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Then I'm sorry must've confused the two. But I also thought I read somewhere that ACPs scope was more expansive than the regular paramedics in most of the USA.



The PCP skill set and medications include:

  • Basic Life Support (BLS) care
  • Oxygen therapy & pulse oximetry
  • Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)
  • Semi-automatic external defibrillation
  • 12-Lead ECG interpretation for ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI)
  • Blood glucometry
  • Administration of six symptom relief medications: acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), epinephrine, glucagon, glucose gel, nitroglycerin, and salbutamol
  • In some regions, where authorized, PCPs are also trained to initiate intravenous cannulation and supraglottic airway insertion
  • Therapies related to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear exposure
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the EMT-B equivalent of the two seems to include more than the EMT-B in most places or an unspecified EMT-I/IV.


To adjust my answer to the original question, to practice in Florida at the same level you would only need your NREMT-B and with that you can submit it to the state for licensure. As far as a job in south Florida, you won't be able to find anything for basics in 911 without it being a fire department, I know some places hire EMT-B's for 911 but that's more northern Florida, middle Florida.
 
The ACP I believe has more scope, and definitely more education then the American paramedic. I'm not sure exactly what's different though.
 
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