The way I see it EMS students should wear a uniform. Because fire recruits and police recruits wear a uniform during their training. If we want to be considered equal to the other emergency service then we should adopt the wearing of a uniform while in training, it's the professional thing to do.
I disagree on all counts. As a profession, we are not fire or police recruits. And I have no desire to be considered "equal" to those persons. I am a medical professional, and I consider myself and my profession well above those other jobs. Why should we lower ourselves to the lowest common denominator? As already mentioned, no other medical profession wears uniforms to class. Why should we do something different? What does it add to the equation that is positive for the profession? You really need to give me something more profound than the old,
"Well, everyone else does it!" Especially when everyone else is not doing it.
Daily uniform wear in the classroom is a BAD idea on several different levels.
First and foremost, it identifies every nimrod in your class as a future medic and member of your program. So when they are outside smoking and throwing their butts down on the ground, playing grabass with the other students, being loud and obnoxious, telling off-color stories or jokes, leaving the bathroom without washing their hands, driving like a maniac in the parking lot, or any number of other embarrassing behaviors, that is a black mark against the entire class and the entire program. I didn't watch the video posted, but there are plenty of embarrassing videos from the RCC program to be found. And their instructors get tired of having to defend them.
Second, putting on that uniform should be instilled in students as something done on special occasions, with special purpose, and with a sense of pride. It should not become a daily routine to be taken for granted. If it becomes just another unreasonable requirement that you are being forced to do (as it has in Sasha's case), then the students lose respect for what the uniform represents. Instead of it being something they take pride in, and take care to wear correctly, it becomes nothing more than another item from their closet. This totally defeats the purpose of the so-called "para-military" approach.
And, of course, it wears out the uniform too quickly. By the end of the course, the dark blue pants have become light gray. The white shirts are also a dingy light gray, with chili stains and cigarette burns in them. That really helps our image, doesn't it? Keep them in the closet until it is time to face the public, and they stay in good condition.
Then there is the whole issue of what you were doing before you came to class. This isn't high school. This isn't the military. This is adult education. Working adults often must come to class from work. There is no reasonable accommodation for them to change into a uniform at the school. And why should they have to change from a suit and tie into BDUs and a denim "job shirt" just to sit in a lecture hall? It's absurd.
There is some valid theory to the "para-military" approach to education. However, EMS is not an appropriate place for that theory. And most any school that places a heavy emphasis on such theory is strongly suspect of not knowing enough about adult education to be teaching anything, much less medicine.
