Hello, I was wondering whether or not to attend Paramedic school to enhance my scope in EMS. Currently, I'm a freshman in college on the premed route. I've been an EMT for around 9-10 months now and have been volunteering at a fire department since I was 16. I have the option to attend paramedic school in the fall for 2 semesters at a community college nearby as well as attend my University. I was wondering if being a paramedic would have a greater impact when applying for medical schools. Also, I was wondering what the range of GPA acceptances is for most medical schools. If you have any questions, feel free to ask away.
Paramedic vs. EMT
- Thread starter Sajramsey
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Greater impact than EMT?
Do you have a prehealth advisor or committee? Have you met them to ask this question? And your other question (GPA for medical school)?
In other words, how significant would the impact be having paramedic experience on the application?
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That depends on how much the experience impacts you. Don't do things to impress an admissions committee.
How much impact will you have with your community as a paramedic? It's too difficult to say, but your portfolio needs variety. It doesn't just depend on one thing. If it solidified your interest in becoming a physician over other health care roles like a PA, great.
You are a freshman, and the rest of the hours you spend outside of being a paramedic count too.
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Paramedic is cool and you become a LOT more confident with managing pt care through the requisite training and clinical hours. It is a pretty involved process, the classroom portion does involve studying at a surprising depth of detail. I would be concerned about the difficulty maintaining your gpa while balancing the two. IMO, your best bet is to just focus on getting good stats, get that clinical experience/exposure as an EMT, and do non-clinical volunteering. Most of my interviewers didn't have a good grasp of the different levels of EMS licensure so I doubt your app will look that much stronger unless you wrote about leading teams or a really complex call you managed. I had some additional TEMS experience that I didn't even include in my app since it didn't feel like it would really add more to my picture compared to my additional experiences outside of emergent, clinical settings.
tldr: If you think you can manage it and you really want to, do it. If not, don't sweat it.
tldr: If you think you can manage it and you really want to, do it. If not, don't sweat it.
IsTheSceneSafe
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I feel like being a paramedic is overall more liked by an admission committee. However you have to take in other factors. If you worked as an EMT for 5 years vs worked as an EMT for 4 years + 1 year of paramedic. It likely won’t have that great of an impact. Being a paramedic for a few years definitely is greater than an EMT. But then you have to spend the years doing that. Spending a year in paramedic school and then working as a paramedic for a year is at least 2 years of time. Time that would be better spent in medical school.
If you want to be a paramedic for your own sake, I say go for it. If it’s because it’ll look better on the application definitely don’t do it.
If you want to be a paramedic for your own sake, I say go for it. If it’s because it’ll look better on the application definitely don’t do it.
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It will get you high marks for being in a patient care situation but it won't make up for deficits in other areas such as grades & scores, shadowing, non-clinical community service (volunteering), research (more important at some schools than at others), and leadership/teamwork. And the training is long and can be expensive. That time could be better spent doing other things. If you want to be a professional paramedic go for it. If not, do a couple hundred hours of volunteering in a hospital or clinic in any capacity and fil the rest of your time with other activities including academics.
Medical school is going to teach you what you need to know to be a doctor. If you've already know some things, it puts you an hour or two ahead of your peers -- it isn't that big a boost once you are admitted.
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It is a big difference between the two to be honest. I have loved being a paramedic and it has driven my passion for medicine and wanting to do more. Like many other professions the year long of schooling is just the start. I was working 24 hour shifts then going to do 12 hour hospital rotations, the next day doing 8 hours of school and then back to work for another 24 hours. It probably took me another year or two after graduating to feel confident enough in most areas and I work for an extremly busy department. The amount of experience I have gained and my ability to interact with patients and formulate a somewhat accurate differential diagnosis has been has been very rewarding. I think if you want more experience with patients and have the time to do it then go for it, but I also don't think it will add that much to an application that will make you stand out much more.
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