paramedic nursing

Just have to ask the Instructor. I, personally, think it's a wonderful idea!

Im a RN who has 10 yrs med-surg float pool experience which covers adults and kids over 3yrs. Im in a EMT class right now, because I want to do Paramedic and nursing. I feel that I need to learn the basics of pre-hospital care before I can become a paramedic. THe school told me I could challenge the EMT, and just start my internship for paramedic. I do not feel that my experience in the hospital for 10yrs, would be enough for emergency care.
Sure I know alot of what I am learning, but there is so much I dont know. I have never had to load a pt on a stretcher, when EMT's come to my flooors to pick up pts, they do all that. I have never had to arrive on the highway to find body parts all over at 2am. Sure I can challenge both tests, but what good would that do me for any experience?

This is the same for some nursing programs who do not require the applicant to become a nursing assistant first. I believe in learning the basic fundamentals before doing any higher level of learning.

We just did our 1st test in EMT for chapters 1-6, I got 91%, so It always helps to keep learning!!!! We have a anatomy/phis teacher, who is also a chiropractor. He said he needs his EMT for some certification to teach.

Soooooooooooo, its always good to learn more!!!

Not sure where you are from but here in Ohio there are a few nurse to paramedic classes around. They are ususally through a local community college. I know Tri-C has some. Hope this helps. My other suggestion would be to go online to your local paramedic divsion and search there. In Ohio EMS falls under the division of public safety.
Good luck!

I am Police Inspector Magilas S. Salvacion, RN. currently employed here in the philippines as a Nurse in the Philippine National Police. I have red your EMail in the ALLNURSES web site. Good day sir. I would like to ask you, or any body who can read this email... is really possible for a nurse to be do the job of the EMT-P. Thank you.

what are the differences and similarities of a Nurse and a Paramedic... please forgive me to ask a very straight forward question... is a nurse higher in a degree over the paramedics???
I am a nurse in the philippines... would like to know... whatis the policies, protocols and culture all over the world. thank you

As many people have done I'd like to ad my two cents( or one as it maybe). I believe TraumaRN was correct in finding the reason that we are all here and that is to provide excellent pt care. I do believe that an RN can transition to the role of the paramedic w/o actually taking the paramedic class. I may be a little bias since I am currently completing my PHRN. I would like to ad that i have been an EMTB for 5yrs knowing that i would eventually go for PHRN as my goal was to be an RN. If people have the right training like i feel I have had by attending the EMTP CEU's, PHRN class taught by paramedic instructors. PHRN's can be very effective and good. All of course IMHO

In my state of NJ if you are a nurse with some emergency and or critical care background and also an EMT-B you can be sponsored to ride with the medics for at least 200 hours and become an MICN which is a Mobile Intensive Care Nurse. This is the equivalent of being a Paramedic and answering 911 calls. Athough some Medics would disagree with that....hehe...
Ken

I have a different take on this I guess. After the better part of 2 decades in EMS, working with nurses in the streets, in the air and recently as a NICU nurse myself, I have come to conclusion that the comparison of RN to Paramedic is like comparing a plumber to an electrician. Both work toward building a house and understand large parts of each others jobs truly can't do each others jobs without more training. Granted, the training would be abbreviated.

The biggest problem in Paramedicine is a lack of understanding of what exactly we do and where we fit in the world of medicine not only by others but by paramedics ourselves. As it is the same in any profession where a gap in service is filled with specifically trained personnel. Until we are able to have a no BS comin' to Jesus and establish ourselves as a separate and stand alone field, these questions will continue to arise. It is up to Medics to fix this. We have grown and have been come and very important link in the care of the public. I think we can start with the term "pre-hospital"; it is antique and needs to drop from our vocab. We aren't prepping them for hospital care anymore that the said electrician is prepping for the plummer. We are providing emergency treatment, emergency management and extrication of sick and injured. As with the electrician and plumbers, we are the medic’s and RN's that are part of the whole that is the house of the complete patient picture.

Michigan approved an RN to EMT and RN to Paramedic Curriculum in November of 2007. The Great Lakes EMS Academy has presented both courses with great success. They now have RN to EMT courses every October - December. Then Nurses are required to have ER or ICU experience. The classes meet on Thursdays and Fridays every other week. The Paramedic course runs from January through April (followed by an internship) on the same days.

Agree and disagree with your stance. First, I think it is possible for most anybody to learn how to do anything with proper education and motivation. I disagree that RN's can transition into the pre-hospital role without some type of paramedic course or transitional course. I am not sure what is required for PHRN licensure in your state, so the course may actually mirror some of the paramedic bridge courses offered.

However, we simply cannot take an RN out of the ER or ICU and expect him/her to function as a pre-hospital leader. This is exactly the role of a paramedic. On the other hand, I believe the same is true of paramedics who think they can function as RN's. Even core concepts of pre-hospital care such as scene size up and the incident command structure are simply not part of nursing education. In addition, we have to worry about scene safety issues, mass casualty incidents, triage (yes, this is different from ER triage) extrication, advanced airway management, and a different process for making patient care decisions. Even something as simple as pulling somebody out of a car can be complicated. What dangers exist, how do we use cribbing to stabilize the vehicle, how do we deal with airbags (The days of disconnecting the car battery to cut power to the air bag are over. We now have to worry about multiple airbag locations and many often have their own power supply and can pose a significant problem for extrication), what tools and techniques are required, how do we protect the patient, how do we care for the patient with prolonged extrication, can we take time to go slow or is a rapid extrication required? These and several more concepts all go into our scene management and decision making.

While I think the RN can transition into the pre-hospital role, a strict well structured program is required to properly transition the RN into this role. I am not sure some of these two week shake and bake programs are adequate.