Paramedic Schools/Programs in Southern California

[thegreypilgrim]

Honestly I don't see how you can critique a private program if you went to a CC.

Sure you can. Why wouldn't you be able to?

I don't believe many schools churns out students like a conveyor belt.

"Many" don't. Enough do, and of those it's nearly universally a certain type of school.

I've met a ton of medics who went to private programs and pit me to shame at times.

Sure, anecdotally.

I think if anything, CC's actually turn away a lot of quality candidates because they think qualifications mean everything.

They may not mean everything, but there has to be a reasonable minimum. The barriers of entry into EMS are already low enough, and asking students to complete some very basic prerequisites before matriculating is not much to ask.

At the same time, CC's also need to have a vested interest in wanting their students to succeed. Any program that's failing 80% of it's students needs to be investigated. Sure occasionally you get a bad group, but if you start seeing a trend something needs to change.

Certainly.

In my opinion, you only get out of it what you put into it. Some schools just keep their students more in check. That doesn't necessarily mean a better education.

Perhaps not, but it sets students up for better comprehension and mastery of material. At least the mechanism for that sort of thing is there, and the instructors all have to meet the college's professional requirements as far as their own educational backgrounds. Such checks and balances don't exist (or only as mere formalities) at private schools.

 

[Rykielz]

Granted, I went to a community college myself. But every program, in order to be accredited, has to meet the state requirements for a paramedic program. That means the lead instructors/professors are seasoned medics and almost always have at least a bachelor's degree; on top of annual inspection by the accrediting agency in order to maintain their status. Whether a school decides to exceed or add upon this standard, is solely up to their own discretion. Both types of programs are kept in check, your argument about private schools having few checks and balances is unfounded.

I'd also like to bring up another interesting point. The classroom itself is only a portion of the educational process. I went to school in riverside county and when I came up to kern county for work they were laughing at how limited our scope was; LA county is even worse. The field is really where everything starts making sense and where you get a true understanding of how everything works. The school doesn't make the medic.

 

[jgmedic]

Granted, I went to a community college myself. But every program, in order to be accredited, has to meet the state requirements for a paramedic program. That means the lead instructors/professors are seasoned medics and almost always have at least a bachelor's degree; on top of annual inspection by the accrediting agency in order to maintain their status. Whether a school decides to exceed or add upon this standard, is solely up to their own discretion. Both types of programs are kept in check, your argument about private schools having few checks and balances is unfounded.

I'd also like to bring up another interesting point. The classroom itself is only a portion of the educational process. I went to school in riverside county and when I came up to kern county for work they were laughing at how limited our scope was; LA county is even worse. The field is really where everything starts making sense and where you get a true understanding of how everything works. The school doesn't make the medic.

My experience was that the prevailing view is that an LACo trained medic will struggle mightily in Kern, and even in Riverside, our LACo medics have a really hard time at first.