Becoming a paramedic is not easy, but it is rewarding. Being an EMT is a high-pressure, high-stress job, but you’re compensated well for it, and you will get the respect and admiration of your community, as well as the satisfaction of knowing that your job saves lives.With the demands placed on paramedics, the training that you must go through is intense. With such a high-stress job, you wouldn’t expect anything else. Paramedics need to go into their positions confident that they’ve been well trained and well equipped, and with lives on the line, the community expects nothing less.
People’s motivations for becoming paramedics vary from individual to individual. Some have come from a background in volunteering, for example with St John’s Ambulances. Others have a background in health, often from nursing or other areas, and want a change in vocation. Some come in from college, having wanted to become paramedics from as young as kindergarten. Wherever applicants are from, whatever their background, the first and most vital step in becoming a paramedic is getting through all the training.
And let us assure you, that training is not insignificant, nor is it easy. Paramedical training is designed to give student EMT’s the capacity to deal with the pressures of real-world paramedicine. Those basic skills are then honed over careers of constant professional development.
Any paramedic worth their pay will also spend a great deal of time developing their skills and monitoring new techniques and processes, so it’s not a process that ends the day you graduate. Far from it; becoming a paramedic is a career-long dedication to continuous improvement.
Studying to becoming a paramedic can be rewarding, but a real challenge as well. It’s on the upper end of difficulty as far as Bachelor’s degrees are concerned. Some states don’t require you to have a degree in paramedicine, but the training course equivalents – usually a Diploma or Advanced Diploma – are so close to a full Bachelor’s that it may be worth going for the extra semester or two in order to have the degree and then be able to pursue further University training as your career progresses.
Like Law or general Medicine degrees, the intensity of studying to become a paramedic can throw people off if they’re not prepared for it. The less background you have in health going into University, the more intense things will be, because you’ll be learning multiple, radically different systems. Your mental ‘gears’ will have to shift fluidly and rapidly to be able to keep up with learning about physiology, EMT theory, anatomy, and everything else that will be thrown at you.
If you’ve been out of studying practise for a while, we suggest being up-front about it and talking to your University to see what courses they have to ease you back into the swing of things. Your brain can often take a week or two to re-adjust to absorbing new piles of information, and it’s best to be running smoothly when courses start.
What we would like to highlight is the overall difficulty of paramedic training, particularly advanced or specialised paramedicine. It requires much the same aptitude as that demanded of general medical or legal students: the ability to absorb and retain large amounts of information, pick up new concepts rapidly, and deal with a variety of practical problems through the application of common sense and learned procedures.
There are obviously several pathways you can take as you work on becoming a paramedic. In addition to Universities offering Bachelor’s degrees, there are many different courses that can be taken through organisations like TAFE, Higher Education Centres or vocational training companies.
If you have the choice, we recommend a University, as explained above, but obviously you should pick what suits you best. Universities are set up as centres for learning, and with dedicated administrative staff, well-equipped libraries and lounges, internet access, email, and support networks, as well as generally more flexibility with online and remote learning, you can see why we recommend them.
Further training is also something you should bear in mind. Once you’ve been on the streets as a paramedic for a few years, you may want to change up what you’re doing. Advanced degrees are some of the best ways to get promoted or specialise as a paramedic, and holding a Bachelor’s will open more doors for you in that regard.
The Challenges Of Becoming A Paramedic
Ideally, becoming a paramedic would focus only on emergency First Aid. The actual mechanics of emergency response First Aid are actually fairly straight-forward, and account for a significant amount of paramedic work. In addition, you can practise the mechanical techniques on dummies and props fairly well, and drill the knowledge into yourself.Unfortunately, reality is far more complex. Competent EMT work is far more demanding, and requires skill, comprehensive knowledge, flexibility and the ability to make decisions under pressure. None of these things come without hours of hard training.
A thorough knowledge of physiology, anatomy, paramedical theory, policy, and administrative issues are the absolute minimums before you can become a proper paramedic. Learning all that can be a little overwhelming. The drop-out rates for people studying to become paramedics in their first year are high. Don’t let yourself add to those statistics.
Luckily, teachers at paramedic schools are well aware of the demands they place on their students. There is a fine line between stretching students and breaking them entirely. Obviously, paramedic schools want to produce the best possible paramedics at the end of their courses. At the same time, a high failure or drop-out rate indicates that the trainers are not looking after their students well enough.
It’s for this reason that constant self-assessment and awareness is vital as you work through paramedicine training. If you start to lag or fall behind, address it sooner rather than later. If you can’t keep up with one particular area or are struggling in class, speak up and let your teachers know. If they’re aware of your having difficulties, they can assist you or refer you to the many support programs that help out in adult learning. If you remain silent, you’re just one more student amongst dozens, and teachers aren’t infallibly psychic.
At worst, if you fall too far behind, two issues will arise. The first will be that your coursework will suffer. Studying to become a paramedic is like any other course of study – complex ideas will be built out of simple foundations. There’s no point attending a course on calculus if long division still sends you into a cold sweat.
Secondly, struggling with study dramatically undermines your confidence in your own abilities. There’s nothing more debilitating than the feeling of being left behind or struggling to keep up. If you’re being overwhelmed, unless there are things you can do that will have an immediate ant notable effect on your studying – like giving up alcohol, recreational drugs, partying, or reducing your workload so you can study more efficiently – then start talking to your school’s support network and see what advice they can give you.
Delaying your graduation or reducing your study load may seem like something you want to avoid, but it’s better to complete a course of study a year later than you’d originally planned rather than dropping out due to burn-out entirely.
Having to re-sit courses also means you wil fall behind the peers you started with. One of the best things about paramedic training is the people you will meet and work with on the way through your time in school; they will be your peers when you enter the work-force, and unless you’re in a huge population center, you’ll probably be working closely with many of them through your career.
Remember that a lot can change in the years that it will take you to complete your studies. For a start, you’ll get into the habit of regular study. At first, your brain will probably feel a little stretched, especially if you haven’t been doing formalised learning for a while. Don’t stress, and if the thought of studying full-time or near to full-time concerns you, contact a vocational education school about doing some back-to-study preparation work.