Firstly, I don't know what you think is so simple about treating and transporting. Why is it that so many paramedics insist on judging the complexity of their role by the number of drugs they carry and the thickness of their protocol books. Secondly, not everyone gets transported. Not everyone fits the cook book.
How do I make it seem like we're doing heart surgery? I think its depressing that the mere mention of taking pride in higher education and putting a value on knowledge is seen as taking it all too seriously. Going overboard. Honestly, you mention and bloody associates degree on this board and 7 different idiots come out of the wood works to piss and moan about too much education. Like, woah dude, lets not go nuts now, I'm a professional, I memorised my protocols normal BSL range in under two days, what else could I possibly need to know?
Its not even just about "need to know". Probably 70 percent of my degree won't be directly relevant when I start. How much of a nursing degree is directly relevant to my ex-girlfriend in the first days of her nursing grad year on a cardio-thoracic ward? Couldn't she just go to a tech school for 6 months and learn everything she needed to know about that particular ward and memorise some dot points on "chests and junk"? How much of my best mate's computer science degree is relevant in his grad position drafting induction literature? Probably less than me. Nobody whinges about having to have a degree in his field though. What is it with American EMS's obsession with the bare essentials?
If in 10 years, maybe I move into teaching, other parts of my degree may be relevant, the parts on health systems and adult education. I'm thinking about an MPH, expanding into epidemiological research on acute care. Pretty hard to do a masters with a certified 6 months in the back of a fire department though. Maybe I want to move into emergency management. Do a post grad cert, maybe a masters if I'm desperate, some research, maybe publish a few papers, be seen at the right conferences, smooze the right managers, move up the ranks of the Ambulance service's emerg management department. My degree doesn't specifically prepare me for any of that, but, like any degree, it provides a good baseline level of education that can be built on in the right ways.
I believe this obsession with the bare essentials and only those directly relevant to one's current position is a quality of a technician not a professional. The continued adherence to that model really makes EMS's utility in a changing future questionable.
In subtle ways, education can raise the standards of the entire field.
This whole paragraph is a joke. Lets call ourselves professionals and but constantly resist any improvements in education or changes in practice and only memorise a few directly relevant edicts. High quality care? In many cases I doubt it. But it seems like many providers are too stupid to conceive of the idea that the blind adherence to protocol may not equal high quality care. That if you get your patient to the ED doors breathing, that's not necessarily a win.
Medical school? Yeah because every EMT out there was sitting in front of an acceptance letter from Johns Hopkins but thought, "Nah I just don't feel like all that glory, I'll get my EMT cert instead".
Come on mate, I'm willing to take the piss out of myself as much as the next bloke but that facebook group paragraph is ridiculous and this thread is a serious comparison of EMS systems.
There is nothing easy about treating and transporting, trust me. Im just simply saying that there are only so many things we can do for the pt out in the field. We cant perform surgery, we can only give a limited amount of drugs, and sometimes the only thing people need is time, so what do we give for that? Diesel fuel...
Where I work, anybody that calls an ambulance gets transported, if they want to be transported. Im not sure if you guys dont get bs calls, or have the ability of saying to them that they can drive their car to the hospital but we cant. We have to transport them as long as they want us to. It sucks I know, but thats how it works. I really dont like waking up and bringing the guy into the ed at 300am for stubbing his toe either, but thats part of this job. I hate to say it but we run a Medicaid taxi where I work, and thats why the burn out rate is so high.
I think its great that you are continuing your education in the field of EMS and so on. I actually just finished my associates degree in EMS but have yet to find anything to get a bachelors in for it.
And for the paragraph, I personally find it funny because somedays thats exactly how I see it. Where I work the medics get pooped on. The nurses hate us because they are all overworked and see us as the people who bring them work, they dont take report from us half of the time. I have literally watched the nurse on the radio take an inbound by sitting the phone down, going and talking to the doctors, come back on the radio and say "your radio is very broken up, can you repeat the vitals and chief complaint and ill see you in five."
I guess I have full intentions on taking my job professionally and seriously, but somedays it seems very hard to do when the hospitals you transport to dont care what you have to say...kinda makes you think, why do I even try.
