How long is the paramedic course where you're at

[VentMedic]

By weekly out of class workload do you mean self-study and homework or labs? In my university labs aren't included into credit hours; so a class of 3 hours of lecture + 3 hours of lab a week is still 3 credits.

Each credit hour corresponds to 50 minutes of lecture per week with an associated typical weekly out-of-class workload of 2-3 hours. For example, a 3 credit hour class would have a total of 150 minutes of lecture per week with 6-9 hours of out of class work.

Yes, that includes homework, assignments or whatever.

Lab may be included as 1 semester credit hour which would be 3 hours/week.

 

[EMT007]

The program at the UCLA Daniel Freeman paramedic school is only 9 months. 3 months of lecture and classroom training, 3 months in the hospital, and 3 months field internship. They've got some of the highest pass rates for the national registry test in SoCal.

 

[VentMedic]

Considering the passing score on the NREMT is only 70%, that shouldn't be too difficult. Florida requires 80% on their State Exam.

Passing the test is only one challenge. The quality and application of the knowledge are the important parts of the education.

 

[HotelCo]

Ours are a year - year and a quarter long. with 660 hours of clinical time.

I probably should say that we only attend school one day a week for 12 hours. (2 of those are for meals) so really only 10 hours.

9AM - 12PM: Test, lecture.

12PM- 1PM: Lunch.

1PM - 5PM: Lecture.

5PM - 6PM: Dinner.

6PM - 9PM: Practicals.

 

[stephenrb81]

Ours is 13 months plus the pre-req A&P and Med Math courses. Our clinicals run ~700hours plus a minimum amount of skills usage and contacts, more hours if you don't get the required skills and contacts in the 700. I'd have to look for the didactic/lab hour breakdown.

 

[VentMedic]

Originally Posted by HotelCo
Ours are a year - year and a quarter long. with 660 hours of clinical time.

I probably should say that we only attend school one day a week for 12 hours. (2 of those are for meals) so really only 10 hours.

I'm not picking on you HotelCo.

But, this is a great example of why the total TIME means nothing if it is not associated with a degree or semester credits hours.

You can stretch a 110 hour EMT-B course out to almost a year this way also and make it sound really long when it is not.

For those in college, if you double up and take 24 semester credits for one term to finish your degree faster, people may look at you with awe because they have a standard reference to the amount of work that must be done per semester credit hour. If you say you finished a class measured by purely clock hours quicker by going a extra day or two per week, it doesn't hold the same weight.

 

[marineman]

Our program is broken down into I believe 8 seperate classes with separate credits for each class. We do 18 credits per semester for 2 college semesters but 3 of those credits each semester are for our field and clinical work so the actual class is only 15 credits per semester or a standard college workload. We only go two days a week though for 8 1/2 hours each day (1/2 hour lunch so it's 8 hours of class). So to a normal college student I'm taking more credits per semester than they normally do but I only go to school for two 8 hour days in a week. Credits can be a misnomer just as much as the physical length of time.

This is another good reason for the school accreditation because I'd rather spend 1/2 the time in a well taught class with a knowledgeable instructor that can cover all of the info and help us understand it in that time than spend twice the number of hours in a poorly taught disorganized class that is scrambling at the end to make sure everything has been covered much less understood.

I'm not saying that my course is perfect and if I knew before I started what I know now I would have changed and taken all of the other courses for the associates before starting the cert courses but it's hindsight and all we can do is push forward for changes in the educational process so things improve in the future.

 

[nick]

Paramedic Program at UMBC in Maryland is a 4 year bachelor's degree program. They have two "tracks", a clinical paramedic track and a management track.

They also offer a masters program in emergency health services as well as the CCEMT-P program.

 

[fortsmithman]

I think all paramedic programs should be a 4 yr bachelors degree.

 

[KEVD18]

I think all paramedic programs should be a 4 yr bachelors degree.

that would be great in the abstract, but(at least in my area) you're never going to see pay commensurate with education.

the average starting pay for a medic in ma is $16/hr for the private services(which out number municipals by a huge margin). plus, getting a civil service job in ma is damn near impossible along any sort of reasonable time line unless you are the perfect civil service candidate(not to offend anybody, but the perfect civil service candidate is the disabled veteran minority female). unless you've got at least one of those "qualifications"(the more the merrier), its going to be an uphill battle the whole way. i don't know one single person that would rack up 80k+ in education costs for a 30k/year job that they might have to wait 8 years or better to get.

unfortunately, that's the vicious circle we find ourselves in. you cant get more pay without more education, but you cant afford to get the education on the pay you get. sure, there are some people that can afford to take four years out of life to go to school full time to get their medic. i'm certainly not one of them.

and even if you can afford it, it will be a cold day in hell before a massachusetts private ambulance service pays a field level medic 30+/hr. just not going to happen. i know of one service where the 20yr paramedics pay(meaning they have worked for that company for 20 consecutive years) is less than the day one starting pay for a municipal basic emt.

sure, in abstract thought, it would be great to have everybody trained to the highest level possible. but the system just cant support it.

 

[Ridryder911]

Do you think NOT having the education will get you a pay raise as well?

 

[KEVD18]

Do you think NOT having the education will get you a pay raise as well?

as i sadi before, its a circular argument. i dont know many who can afford a full tilt education to make peanuts. and i dont know many companies that will pay you the wages necessary to legitimize getting that education. round and round we go. something has to give or we're going to continue to turn out undereducated providers until the end of time.

 

[VentMedic]

as i sadi before, its a circular argument. i dont know many who can afford a full tilt education to make peanuts. and i dont know many companies that will pay you the wages necessary to legitimize getting that education. round and round we go. something has to give or we're going to continue to turn out undereducated providers until the end of time.

You could ask any of the other healthcare professionals who have gone from OJT - Certificate - Associates - Bachelors - Masters - Doctorate and see how well the reimbursement agencies have recognized "Professional" status and how well the pay raises have reflected. You can include nurses in that group also although reimbursement is under a different category. The professional status achieved by advancing to degree from diploma definitely helped their wages.

 

[KEVD18]

You could ask any of the other healthcare professionals who have gone from OJT - Certificate - Associates - Bachelors - Masters - Doctorate and see how well the reimbursement agencies have recognized "Professional" status and how well the pay raises have reflected. You can include nurses in that group also although reimbursement is under a different category. The professional status achieved by advancing to degree from diploma definitely helped their wages.

yes, that is very very true. i dont need to do much research into that, both of my parents are rn's, one associates and one bsn.

but ems is a different animal. until there is significant govenrment regulation requiring that level of education for ems providers(canada comes to mind), it will never change. until someone is required by law to attain that level of training(minimum two year degree etc), the ambulance companies will never be required to compensate them appropriatley.

im certainly not advocating against education. not at all. all im saying is that its going to take a whole lot more than a few people who get the degree to change the circumstances.

 

[Ridryder911]

The main point is EMS should not be a different animal. It should be alike any other health care provider.

When reviewing the pay structures of EMS payers (i.e. Medicare, BC/BS, Aetna) one needs to review why aeromedical care was able to receive a large differential in payment structures than ground services.

Unfortunately, the primary reason was not due to the expenditure of aircraft, etc. It was due to the ability to respond to Medicare's request of why the reason for increase in payments. The primary reason was they had to have qualified staff. In other words, not just a "warm body".

Where as American Ambulance Association (yep, AAA) reputed the decision, they themselves could not justify the same requirement. As there is plenty of EMT's (actually an over abundance) and yes, some shortage of Paramedics but not in crisis mode and they do not require those to be specialized.

So we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Nothing will change until we change the payment structure, payment structure will not change until education and so on...

R/ r 911