Re: replacement of nurses with techs

Umm.. it took me 120 classroom hours to get my EMT under the "old 
curriculum" in 1989. At the time, one of the big local fire departments 
had a community college program to churn out paramedics in 90 calender 
days of 8-5 m-f. So.. what this particular nurse described is not 
entirely out of bounds.

As for recognizing things, lets be honest... a nurse right out of school 
 has less clinical experience and judgement than a paramedic. Nurses 
get the majority of their practice based education AFTER school in their 
first job assignment. Nursing school itself is a 2-fold process.. weed 
out the idiots (which it doesnt always) and socialize you to think  as a 
nurse (which it usually does). Most nurses never earn ACLS (most dont 
need to...) but show me a paramedic who graduates their program in my 
region (S.E. Texas) without knowing their material front and back.

That being said, lets be honest. Its about nurses protecting their own 
(JOBS) interests (and a little bit about patient safety... too - nursing 
acts dont distinguish between a cherry CNA and a veteran paramedic when 
they refer to them as unlicensed assistive personnel).. I dealt with the 
nursing-nonnursing argument for years as a medic, then finally jumped 
the fence and went to nursing school.

Most of the PARAMEDICS that I have encountered working inside hospitals 
have excellent skills and judgement (but thats just my opinion), and I 
have come to realize that there are quite a few folks with nursing 
licenses whom I wonder how the hell they ever got them.

Dave, EMTP, RN



FIREOUT wrote:
> I just read a article in Time, which was discussing the replacement of
> nurses with techs .  One nurse states,  that a pt may tell me that they
> are coughing and feel anxious, that a pulmonary embolism, a para-something
> with only six months of school wont catch things like that."
>
> So are now the EMS providers para-somethings with little training.  Last
> time I looked it took about 6 months to be an EMT and 1 and 1/2 to be a
> medic.
>
> Hmm...arent nurses and paramedics ACLS trained....yeah but in the eyes of
> the nurses we are just "para-somethings"