What are we attracting to enter EMS?

[DT4EMS]

After reading multiple posts on EMS forums, from the "Not wanting to be touched", "Paramedic steals body parts" to " I don't want to have to attempt to resuscitate anyone" . It has made me wonder, who and what we are attracting to enter the EMS profession?

Unfortunately, we (instructors) know that when the NREMT made a statement that "many are now attempting to enter EMS, when they fail the fries section" ... they were not joking. From either the formal NASA rocket scientist that retired or the one that has ran out of options.

Are people entering for the right reasons? Should there be a screening process to help eliminate those that expectations are not that of the career? Should we allow anyone to enter? Was emphasis placed during the educational process, that majority of our job is NOT technical, rather humanistic? Are we producing EMT"s and Paramedics with unrealistic expectations? What they expect and what it really consists of is much different?

Discussion? I will hold my comments for a while?

Here's one for ya Rid..............

I am familiar with an institution........... if I could call it that............ that would not allow for the removal of students ( after repeated attempts) because of how the students were funded to attend the "school" (an I use that term very loosely).

Aparently EMT and EMT-P is a place lower income folks are being "pushed" into.

Now it wasn't a place I taught for, but it lost one of the best EMS instructors I have ever known. She put up with it for a lot longer than I could have.

 

[jochi1543]

The thing that amazes me the most is that some people are horrified by the sight of blood. I had a LOT of that in my EMT-B/EMR class, but that was a bit more excusable, since many students simply needed the class to go into fire, so their contact with blood would probably be limited to the occasional extrication call. But there are people in my EMT-I class who actually start crying at the sight of a drop of blood when they watch an IV get started, and these are people who are actually planning to work for an ambulance service. Yeah, sure most people get used to it with repeated exposure, but I'd hate to go to a serious trauma call and have my partner pass out cold when they see a piece of avulsed skin, leaving me alone to deal with the mess. Why do people like that even go into EMS? It's just beyond me. [/RANT]