National EMS Scope of Practice - Final Draft

[southerndoc]

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The final draft of the National EMS Scope of Practice is available at www.emsscopeofpractice.org.

It's a little long to sort through, but I was wondering if anyone with EMS experience cared to comment on it.

Personally I'm glad to see an initiative to standardize EMS training throughout the country. Let's hope that states will adopt it, which I'm sure they will as adopting this will likely be tied to grants and other funding.

 

[Doczilla]

They've put together a list of minimum standards of knowledge and skill for various EMS provider levels. States have the option of restricting or expanding upon the recommended standards. For those states that accept it, you can easily transfer your certification from one state to another.

Sounds like the whole idea behind the NREMT to me. Why did they feel that they had to go and redo it?

'zilla

 

[redsurgeon]

How would a national scope of practice affect us? Does it mean that our licenses would be handled by a federal entity and we could freely move from state to state? Does this preclude state licensure? I haven't been following this issue because I've been in medical school.

I'd like to know because it's unlikely that my paramedic license would travel with me to residency, and I don't have the time to go through the USDOT exam... I've heard that it's good for some stuff even though I'm nearly an M.D. now... Heck, after paying $5000 to get it, I really don't want to let it go, even though it's kind of superceded, but not really, by my M.D. degree...

BTW, doctors have *no good idea* what paramedics learn or do on the road... For example, I was taught in EMT-P school that 12-20 is normal respiratory rate... I asked the course director for the emergency medicine rotation what normal respiration was, and he said, "16." I told him that I thought it was "12-20." He stated that it's not true, and looked at me like I was an idiot. I dropped the subject.

So doctors think that you might actually not know what you're taught.... Anyway, this is a totally different thread but was interesting to me, to say the least.

 

[deleted6669]

BTW, doctors have *no good idea* what paramedics learn or do on the road..

agree- I told a doc at an interview for an empa job that I was comfortable running codes and intubating, etc because I had worked as an L.A. county medic for 5 yrs and he said " they let you intubate people as a medic?"