I was reading a message board about an accelerated EMT-B course that was conducted in 14 days. One poster claimed the course was way too short and that it “scared the hell out of him”.
Then there was the follow up post from a former medic: “I don’t think they (EMT-Bs) should be allowed on the ambulance at all, but if we are going to have ‘”drivers”‘, lets make sure they are qualified ‘”drivers”‘.
Yikes.
I don’t know if some paramedics have a God complex or they just like to stir the pot.
Guess what guys? Not every call is an ALS call and not every patient needs a paramedic.
To me, it make sense to have the medics free for the actual “emergencies” and have the EMT-B run the BLS and transfer calls.
But what do I know?
Fourteen days seems a bit too intense for ~140 hours of class. Ten hours a day for two weeks? Yikes. People need time to absorb the information.That being said, I agree with you about EMT-B’s versus paramedics. I am on an active mountain rescue team, and most of our group are WFR’s with a few WEMT’s: not only is BLS more than enough for what we encounter in the field, there’s no way that we could even attempt to get ALS gear available on a mission.Of course, the people we deal with are generally healthy but suffering trauma. In an urban setting, it would seem that ideally we’d roll the ALS teams for every emergency, but let the BLS folks take over if the situation warranted it. Saying that EMT-B’s shouldn’t practice patient care is insane. The response should be adequate, and no more.