Interesting Question

[bcurtis]

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First off, thanks in advance for reading this and giving your input.

I just recently completed a very rigorous 10 week EMT-B program at a local community college and did very well in it, along with 7 other people whom I have established very close friendships with. I'm currently starting my junior year in the fall at my college, but part of me wants to continue in the EMT life and take my seat in the paramedic program at that same community college with a few of the 7 students that are continuing on. Most of those students are either older with degrees or are either my age, but never went the college route and instead are going EMT-P first. My end goal is to go to medical school and I'm leaning more towards just sticking with my degree and doing the paramedic program later down the road.

Any thoughts would be awesome guys!

 

[Darthberghen]

Do whatever it takes to get in med school if you want to be a doctor, unless you want to be a 40/50-year-old paramedic.

 

[Elevencents]

What's the question? If you want to go to med school go to med school. Why would you do EMT-P down the road?

 

[rzoo14]

I would say go for the degree and if you can part time the paramedic program, do it. Otherwise, you can always take a gap year to improve your ec and this would work for that.

 

[Starry]

Part-timing paramedic while earning a college degree as some have suggested would be incredibly difficult. Would not recommend.

Do what you love; you can always apply to med school after being a paramedic for a few years. However, if you already know you want to be a physician, why would you spend money and time completing another professional degree? 😕

 

[BB8730]

part of me wants to continue in the EMT life and take my seat in the paramedic program at that same community college with a few of the 7 students that are continuing on.

For whatever reason, this feeling is very common for pre-meds who start becoming involved in EMS. I too wanted to put my medical school track on hold and work more in EMS and many of my pre-med/EMT friends wanted to as well (some actually did). I thought, "I'm young, I have time, I love EMS, why not?" The truth is, though, that if you're truly hungry for becoming a physician, EMS won't cut it. Being an EMT is exciting in the beginning, but once the honeymoon phase is over, you'll want more. If you want specifics, feel free to PM me and we can chat about it more.

My advice in a nutshell: don't become a paramedic and don't slow down your pre-med track because of your interest in EMS. If you can, try to get some experience as an EMT this year by volunteering or doing small gigs. Keep that interest in EMS alive and look forward to your EM rotation in med school. For now, getting into med school should be overwhelmingly your priority. Good luck! 👍

 

[LScribe]

If your end game is to become a physician, you should try to work as a part-time EMT-B if possible. In some places, there are companies like the one I work for where they allow ALS rigs to have a paramedic and EMT-B so you can still get greater exposure to patient care than just transport. If you want to focus on school, you could always just volunteer or take a year off before medical school to work as an EMT.

 

[ShyRem]

You need to decide.... Do you want to be a physician or a paramedic? Having been a paramedic before going to med school (at a later age), while the experience was helpful I would have been better off going to med school younger.

If you want to be a paramedic, do that. If you want to be a physician, go to medical school and work as an EMTB part time.

 

[medickdb]

As a paramedic who is currently applying to schools this cycle, I agree with most of what everyone else is saying. While I enjoyed the education and experience, I always found myself wanting to know more; the why to everything. In EMS, you eventually reach a ceiling. Sure, there's always more to learn, but at the end of the day what you can do with that knowledge will always be limited. I certainly gained valuable insight, but nothing that I'm sure a medical student couldn't figure out for oneself through the process.

At the end of the day, it's a personal decision. There's nothing wrong with becoming a paramedic then going on to medical school. But, there's also nothing wrong with going to medical school with what you have now.

Personally, I appreciate the path I've taken. But, ultimately, your path is your own. You have to figure out what you want.

 

[bcurtis]

Thanks for the great input guys. I believe I'm going to save paramedic more or less as a fall back I suppose. I plan on not needing it but I have some work ahead of me!

 

[SLC]

Thanks for the great input guys. I believe I'm going to save paramedic more or less as a fall back I suppose. I plan on not needing it but I have some work ahead of me!

This is a good plan. You are in a similar situation to where I was a few years back. My undergraduate program was in EMS management and there were a few tracks one could take, one involving becoming paramedic certified.

I wanted to do Paramedic pretty bad, mostly because I thought it sounded like a fulfilling way to earn the requisite 4 year degree for med-school applications, but also because I loved EMS. In the end, I realized the time commitment was just too much while trying to finish up the pre-med curriculum, take MCAT, etc. Paramedic didn't seem hard from an academic standpoint, but the hours required during training would have put a strain on my already tight schedule.

In the end, I got my EMT-IA, it was like a 5credit class for one night a week and one semester in my program. I'm not sure if this still exists, but it was between EMT-B and EMT-P, I could start IV's and push most code meds, intubate etc; but I wasn't trained in some of the other more intense things that the EMT-P class taught.

Having that level of training allowed me to do other things though. Since I was certified in IV's, I got a volunteer gig at a free clinic working as a Medical Assistant, drawing labs etc. That morphed into a community service scholarship that paid for my entire junior year of college, housing etc. included. And after the year was up I stayed on at the clinic working very closely with the doctors on some clinical projects. This gave me a lot of great experience, and many interesting things to talk about in my applications.

I also managed to parlay my EMS training into a stint on a Naval Hospital ship for a summer as a civilian volunteer. This, like my time at the free clinic, was an incredible experience and probably made my application stand out a bit.

I share that mainly to point out that you can probably find ways to put your current level of training/interest in EMS to work for you without spending a ton of hours getting the EMT-P.

TL;DR: If you are genuinely interested in Med-School and have the grades etc. I'd recommend against doing EMT-P. Get some EMS training/experience and put it to use, but the hours required to get the full Paramedic cert. might strain you too much and are probably not worth it to someone with definitive plans to enter medical school soon after.