Useless

MedikErik, you have opened a door for an interesting topic. The articles and research usually reflect the opinion of the person(s) doing the study. They have the control of what is studied, not studied, and what data to publish. Of course it has to have some guidelines to remain credible. Everyday there are new research articles submitted for evaluation and publication. Some are product or politically motivated. If you want a point made, you can search through a 100 articles and find 5 that will agree with you. The other 95 may not agree with you, but those you are not interested in. Yes, this is done when someone wants a new tax passed to support a new ALS system or acquire a flight program. There are also studies to support BLS systems for the area.
http://pdm.medicine.wisc.edu/20-4 PDFs/Isenberg.pdf

medic5740 has posted a new thread for Rural EMS which I hope will get some good replies. Sometimes even in the rural regions, it's not always about the ALS or BLS but the skills appropriate to the region. Farm machinery, coal mines and water require something very different. For this reason, some industrial and agricultural companies will send some of their own employees to EMT classes. Many times BLS support and swift extracation can save a life. ALS is good, but may not be the closest. A paramedic working solely at an industrial or agricultural site may not be able to keep up their ALS skills.

Yes, I know all of my posts have been pro-education in the medical fields, but sometimes, there are some situations where different experiences, expertises and other areas of education are required.

The EMT-B is still a very important part of many systems especially if they have other skills and knowledge to compliment their EMT-B.
 
Ya know, I bet the kid that I laid with inside a demolished car two nights ago for 30 minutes while FD cut her out wouldnt say that my EMT-B license is useless. And I know all my paramedic co-workers who dont have to get up at 3am to go do a psych transfer after they have ran 10-15 calls already that day wouldnt say me and my bls truck is useless. Matter of fact when we go out of town on a long distance trip went we get back we always here....we didnt realize how much you guys do. So needless to say....i'm a little offended.

Paramedics do alot more "skills" than a Basic....but us Basics have our place.
 
BossyCow said:
There are going to be times as a paramedic or even as a doc ( you mentioned being pre-med) when your hands are going to be tied by your job description, company policy, insurance reimbursement criteria... and more ad nauseum. Every job has the 'shut up and just do as you are told' component.
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That comment is very true for doctors. Almost every hospital will have a list of different skills and privileges granted to each doctor. Some doctors can not intubate, put in central lines or manage ventilators along with a whole list of other things. It is also understood that a consult for a specialty physician must be obtained for certain patients. So yes, some hospitals make some doctors feel "inferior" and a little useless at times.
 
Emtgirl21 said:
....i'm a little offended.
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I wouldn't waste time being offended. No one can make us feel inferior without our compliance. I have met 'useless' EMT-B's. I've also met 'useless' Paramedics, docs, nurses, plumbers, bank tellers, and hoards of others who bring a sense of drudgery and minimalism to the performance of their jobs. It's all in the attitude.... heh heh, and I've often been accused of having more than my share of that!:P
 
I agree with Tincanfireman on this subject. We all pick our own choices on how far we go, but being a basic has its place no matter what. I would love to continue on to medic school, but it is not practical for me. My chosen profession "allows" me to serve as a member of our Emergency Response Team as an "extra" for my job. It is funny how everyone else dosent think much of your skills or training until the sh*t hits the fan. Then all of those expect to see you there doing something to "make it all better"
Good luck no matter how far you go and remember no matter what things would be a whole lot different without you there.
 
When I was looking into EMT school, and even after I graduated at the age of 18, I didn't understand what the big deal was. I too couldn't imagine why someone wouldn't just go through to get their paramedic license. I am one of those people that never went beyond EMT-Basic training. Somewhere between my idealism, ego, and reality, I soon found out that Paramedic school wasn't in my reality.

My grandfather was saved by "just" a mall security guard trained in CPR/AED.

I think you'll find that many EMTs also have other jobs. In fact I haven't worked with a single partner that is just an EMT. Some are raising kids, some worked corporate jobs, and some work as an EMT because that's what made them happy.

In the perfect system, EMTs act as first responders and provide care prior to ALS arrival. Then they stick around and support the ALS folks by doing the BLS stuff (Patient assessment, bagging, pumping, grabbing, etc).

I can't tell you how relieved many of our patients were to see us arrive within a minute or two, and how relieved I was knowing ALS was only a few minutes behind. Often we'd start the assessment, start vitals, and start treatment (O2, EPI, Backboard, etc) and have all of that started when ALS arrived. It worked perfectly!

There were times when our BLS units would get an AED shock or two in before ALS arrival, and times when BLS would be bagging the patient when ALS arrived. Our ALS was required to be on scene within 5 minutes, but still, a BLS unit would arrive on scene and get the party started.

I'm just an EMT... and a middle school teacher... and student council chair... and coach... and student... and web designer... and...(you get the point):)
 
....right....and I completely understand how an EMT-B is extremely important for the EMS industry, and how he/she definitely plays his/her own vital role in saving/caring for the patient...

but my issue is with how useless and practically inept we become, in terms of our ability to treat the patient and our medical knowledge, when ALS gets on scene and takes over....(then we're just hands)...

I mean, in front of ALS, EMT-B's are hopeless.... my point being....wouldn't it be better if every call was responded to by Paramedics? Granted that this would be radically inconvenient and expensive, but wouldn't it be better for the patient.....and please don't take offense to this....if the EMT-B profession was sort of eliminated..? I mean, it seems to me EMT-B's are only in action where Paramedics cant be expected to run every call...and they sort of function like triage buffers with a few skills thrown in to keep the patient alive...


So in that sense.....isn't the EMT-B position obsolete? (except to save the Paramedic's time?)
 
ah no. Even when I have a paramedic partener....there are still times when I do all of the pt care and he just drives.
 
I really think that you just really need to go work or ride with a service that uses EMT's and follow an EMT around for a while. I had a really long post about all the things an EMT does but my computer decided to erase it.

I have days when I work with a medic partener and there are times I do all the pt care. Last shift. I did all the patient care until bout 5pm. We had a prehospital birth. He treated mom. I treated baby. I mean there really is alot that EMT's do.

I lost the rest of my post. I really did have a good point....but oh well.
 
I'm a Paramedic, but i ride with a basic. i ride with the same guy everyday, and ill be the first to say, i dont know what i would do without him.

He is filling out applications for fire dept's in the area, and i told him the other day, he better not put me down as a reference because i will lie through my teeth when they call. ill tell those guys what a lazy, wierd guy he is... just so that they wont hire him, and i can keep him.

Personally i like riding with a basic way way better than riding on a double medic truck. dont ask me why, cause theres plenty of reasons, i just like it better.

Basics ARE a second pair of hands, a second pair right when we need them. i wont take credit for a save, because i know i couldnt have done it without the help.
 
Ethanol4all said:
....right....and I completely understand how an EMT-B is extremely important for the EMS industry, and how he/she definitely plays his/her own vital role in saving/caring for the patient...

but my issue is with how useless and practically inept we become, in terms of our ability to treat the patient and our medical knowledge, when ALS gets on scene and takes over....(then we're just hands)...

I mean, in front of ALS, EMT-B's are hopeless.... my point being....wouldn't it be better if every call was responded to by Paramedics? Granted that this would be radically inconvenient and expensive, but wouldn't it be better for the patient.....and please don't take offense to this....if the EMT-B profession was sort of eliminated.
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No, it would be better if we had internal medicine specialists (MDs who are the real experts of medicine, aka, the doctor's doctor) riding on every ambulance. But that isn't going to happen and similarly, your idea isn't going to work either. Plus, if we required every ems responder to be a paramedic, invariably the quality of paramedics would go way down. I do know where you're coming from and I think we should constantly be challenging ourselves to provide better care and not go backwards (like we are now), but making everyone a paramedic isn't realistic.
 
As much as we all hate to face it, economics is a driving factor, too. EMTB's are cheaper to hire and there's a relatively high turnover rate so no problems of all those step-raises. It's convenient for services to keep that system going because training paramedics is costly. The ones who really, really want to be paramedics will put up with a lot of crap to get there since the EMTB, by definition (okay, I exagerrate!) is expendable.
 
well ill put my point this way.....the best docs, paramedics and nurses etc are the ones who always remember the basics of their job....i mean i was offered paramedic school, straight after i qualified my EMT_B course, and i refused becaused i wanted exleast one years experience on the road, making sure i knew the basics, getting to listen to as many lung sounds/ heart sounds as possible, dealing with as many medical/trauma Pt's as i could, learning how to see and deal the "BS" calls etc....theres always gonna be something new everyday that i can learn for the rest of my career but thats the easy part, tough part is remembering that basic training i had, where i learned and perfected all my core skills...use the time to know what normal is and what isn't...in ireland 90% of the ambulance service is BLS and we are the guys saving lives....I've worked with ALS a few times in a just over a year and we have a very limited air ambulance service, basically the coastguards or Military provide it...but normally its only for major incidents we use them....one of the bases i work with serves a community thats 90 minutes exleast to the nearest treatment facility and thats in the best of weather...so right now all basic skills are being used....just gotta use them wisely and keep with it....you'll find your skills come in handy.....ive been on calls were some senior more qualified people are wondering how to treat or extricate a pt...and its the Basics that come up with the best solution....
 
raising an old thread from back in the day.....
 
A good EMT is hard to beat. Alleviates the need for ALS in a lot of cases. Why? When an EMT gets in trouble, he calls.......a paramedic. I've been called to help with odd splinting or patient movement problems, cause the EMTs were stumped. Velcro doesn't work all the time.......
 
If personal validation (not the same as professional gratification) were a primary motivation for entering any level of care of the sick and injured, one would be in for a very short ride.
 
I
Ethanol4all said:
Yeah, I know what you guys mean.....I'm definitely going to continue my education, and i'm already in college (I'm a second-year at UCLA right now, Neuroscience Major geared towards Pre-Med)

...just sorta wish I could take it a little farther in EMS than basic....but CA doesn't have intermediates and paramedic school is too much time and effort (it's more of a career).....
ah well....
....guess I just gotta give it time, find some sort of meager satisfaction in what I DO manage to do for the patient, and hope it all works out for the best....

Sorry BossyCow....I didn't mean to insult anyone....more than "useless," i meant to say subordinate/inferior to other healthcare providers.....

Thanks a lot though guys..
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I would suggest even skipping Paramedic School and get into PA school. We have a ton of ex Paramedics at the Hospital that I work at who either became nurses and or PAs.

Don't forget to look into ER Tech jobs. You get to learn overall care of a patient and start to make connections. You'll even get to pull cardiac arrest out of cars every once in a while 😬Lol
 
A fairly large county in Nevada has Basic's and A-EMT's but no ACLS drugs; they use Auto Pulses, and AED's. They had 7 patients walk out of the hospital after cardiac arrest saves. and it is a 2 hour drive to the closest hospitals for them. either towards Vegas or over the border in CA. Half of their ambulances are BLS only, I think they have 4 A-EMT's in the county.
So BLS is good for something.
 
I've been a emt-b for 10 years and have worked in ER's, 911 services, transport service, pediatric critical care transport and have found that your job will vary in all these settings. I have also had my IV cert for 8 of these years and at all of my jobs it has been accepted and I have been able to start IV's. When you first become a basic and start working yes you will be viewed as a newbie that doesn't know much but if you want to change this either become the best basic you can or go to medic or nurse school. Best wishes keep learning and don't get discouraged!!
 
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