Former medics find themselves on bottom rung in civilian field

Stars and Stripes | 5/14/15 | Druzin

[Clay Moore]

If they are National Registry, they ought to be able to walk into any private EMS system in the country and get a job.

Each State had its own rules and testing criteria for EMT/EMT-P so that you could be a Paragod in one state and be nothing in a neighboring state. National Registry supposedly fixed that.

I took the National Registry Paramedic test many years ago and it was the toughest test I ever took including ~200 hrs of college.

They said the pass rate was about 1 in 3 first time.

[q_an_a]

I think he should be looking into Physician assistant programs. I suspect that he can take "advanced" test to opt out of some classes and get to the end fast.

According to the 2012 National Salary Survey of PAs, the mean total income for physician assistants working full-time was $102,165. Physician assistants in emergency medicine, dermatology, and surgical subspecialties may earn $100,000 to $200,000 per year.

[donozark]

But how do you get the license without the sheepskin?

[q_an_a]

I think that what you say may have been true in some branches, but I was Viet era AF medic who worked ER plus two solo locations with dependents - no doctors. We had a very heavy program in basic med training on diagnosis and treatment, from colds to hearts etc. At my first base the training especially for ER medics was frequent. The fact that our Chief Master sgt ended up writing parts Calif. PA program after he retired may have been a factor of training.