Re: replacement of nurses with techs

I agree with Davy.  FIREOUT, your fire is out.
jaj

On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 23:29:13 GMT, Dave S <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

>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"
>