As someone who is a professional paramedic, please do not do it just for the EC. Our profession is really trying to come into its own as a distinct part of the allied-health spectrum. These diploma mill programs don't need anymore paying customers. Please, please don't. Anyway, it will be much harder after January 1, 2013 because all future paramedic graduates will have to come from programs that are accredited by the Committee on the Accreditation of Allied Health Professionals (specifically CoAEMSP) or who have Letters of Review registered to seek accreditation. Accreditation is a much higher bar to clear and it will hopefully clean-up some of the poorer programs. Paramedic training is finally (slowly) moving in the direction of nursing: associate's as a minimum point of entry with a few sporadic BS programs. EMT is a different story, but it's basically still a semester long class (about 180-200 hours). Going through an accredited program is generally a good idea anyway.
With that being said, I think the key is what someone else has already said: a genuine experience. I have a friend who just graduated from medical school and he said that the EMT-gig isn't a good bet if you don't take it seriously. If you really did it as a profession, then that's a great experience, but if you just took the class as a gold star on your application, not so much. He really had to differentiate himself as a paramedic during the application cycle because some interviewers didn't seem to know the very big difference.
EMT and CNA training seem to be the common entry points into healthcare exposure, but good prehospital care really does require a skilled professional. That goes for EMTs and paramedics. Think about it: Do you want a EMT who is just trying to get their 100 hours of clinical exposure or one that is truly dedicated to the job?
I think what you and I have said is reflective of what most career paramedics would say on the issue. I could not agree more with your point about EMS coming into its own, and we need to avoid watering down our professional base with people who seek to use it SOLELY as a stepping stone.
I am not the type to expect every person who enters EMS to stick with it for their entire career. Heck, the majority of the people who enter EMS have very little interest in EMS anyway, and are looking for that golden firefighter job...at least in my neck of the woods.
The program where I am faculty at just got CoAEMSP accredited, and in all honesty, the most this will do for the profession is weed out the fly by night programs (a very good thing in my opinion) and keep the good programs from letting their standards slip (also a good thing.) It is not the magic bullet we need though. Until an associate's degree at a minimum is mandated for paramedic certification (similar to nursing ed minimums) then we will not be able to compete on stage with the other allied health big boys (i.e. nursing, respiratory therapy, etc.)
It seems to me lately I can categorize all the paramedic students I encounter into a few categories...
Trying to get a job as a firefighter
Trying to get experience and bridge to RN
Trying to build clinical exposure for medical school
Transitioning from military into civilian job
Not sure what else to do with a year of their life
What's missing? People who want to be paramedics!
Also your point about having to differentiate from being an EMT or a paramedic during interviews is good too. I have had to have this discussion also. I have had unique experiences as a paramedic, including pediatric/neonatal transport, flight medicine, international flight medicine (1 year in Saudi Arabia) to name a few. I kind of have to grit my teeth a little when I think about being lumped into the same group with 15 or 20 other applicants who got their EMT certification over a few weeks so they could get clinical exposure. It just means I have to work harder on differentiating my experience.
Ultimately, whether it be EMT, paramedic, MA, CNA, or any of the other relatively quick and easy medical certifications pre-meds are now catching on to...all of these experiences are becoming less and less influential in the admissions process unless you have some actual genuine, quality, substantive, "real" outcomes to discuss in a PS, interview, or other evaluation.
Just my $.02 on the matter...Sorry to be so wordy, but as a career paramedic pursuing medical school, I have a good bit of opinions on the matter!
