As we’ve discussed in numerous articles here at the EMT Training and Career Center, taking the time to lay out your career goals is a very important step in preparing for a profession as an EMT. You should think about how far you want to go with your training, what type of job you want, and how far you would like to advance in your career. If you’re a goal-oriented person and like to set your sights higher than the rest of the field, you might even want to consider taking it to the top: becoming a paramedic.

Life as a Paramedic

While the practicing EMT (either an EMT-Basic or an EMT-Intermediate) has serious job responsibilities, the outcome of a patient’s treatment ultimately very often lands on the shoulders of the paramedics on the scene of an emergency or trauma. Having a desire to stay current on the absolute best practices in emergency medicine, pharmacology, and advanced life-saving and cardiac stimulation techniques is a must for the paramedic.

You also need the ability to perform well under pressure and to be able to make critical decisions in dynamic environments. The problem-solving abilities possessed by paramedics are second to none, as being able to make an assessment and deliver treatment rapidly and effectively are key skills for the paramedic.

Paramedic Training

While EMT-B and EMT-I training will prepare candidates with many important skills for work in the field, such as airway management, patient assessment, spinal immobilization, and basic pharmacology, paramedic training takes all of this to a whole new level.

Paramedic school will prepare the EMT with advanced skills to administering medications used to treat overdoses and anaphylactic shock. It will give an EMT new skills in reading EKGs and providing appropriate electrical cardiac stimulation techniques that can save the life of a patient. It will also teach advanced topics in the ethical and legal responsibilities associated with providing emergency medical care and the documentation required to ensure that the best care possible was offered.

Again, if you’re serious about starting a career as an EMT, and want to take your training to the highest level, start doing your research on paramedic training and careers. It may just open up a whole new set of career opportunities that can lead to a fulfilling, challenging, and rewarding profession.

Attending an EMT training course will prepare you with the skills required for life in the field. You will learn the necessary emergency medical procedures and techniques to make you an effective responder when emergencies happen. However, at the culmination of your training, you will have one last hurdle to overcome before you are able to receive the certification you will need to be licensed to practice as an EMT in any state in the country: the certification exam.

As you may be aware, many states now use the standard EMT-Basic certification exam offered by the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians, or NREMT. Some states allow the candidate to take either a state exam or the NREMT exam, and a small handful of states require candidates to sit for state-approved exams only, although this number seems to be diminishing.

With the NREMT exam quickly becoming the national standard for EMT certification, this makes preparing for the test much easier for EMT candidates. With many states moving toward this standardized exam, you may now begin to prepare for the test itself well-ahead of actually taking it. One of the best methods to prepare you for success on the NREMT is through the use of practice exams.

There are many practice exam modules available online to choose from which will allow you to walk through actual practice questions from the test right from your computer. One of our favorites is the EMT-Basic exam preparation system offered by our friends at EMT National Training. Their practice module has some very useful features which we haven’t found in other exam preparation software, most notably very detailed progress tracking and simple practice exam setup.

In addition to helping you successfully prepare for certification at the conclusion of your training, practice tests can be an excellent way for individuals get a sense of what topics will be introduced during training that should be focal points for exam study later on. We would recommend beginning to use an NREMT practice exam system at the beginning of your training course as it will allow you to see how the topics covered in your training will be introduced and presented in the exam itself.

With proper preparation, you can successfully pass the exam at the conclusion of your EMT training.

If you are seriously considering undergoing EMT training and beginning a career in emergency medical services, then it’s very likely that you’re curious about the outlook for EMT jobs and employment prospects for the upcoming years. In this article, we’ll take a brief look at what the future trends will look like for jobs and employment numbers.

Overall Growth in Jobs

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average growth in EMT jobs is expected to be around 9% through the year 2018. Currently, this is about the same as average job growth in most other sectors of the economy, but there are a few factors that may lead to additional growth in jobs which are not reflected in the current data.

Elderly Population Increase

One of the largest factors that could lead to a significant amount of growth in jobs is the aging of the “baby boomer” population. As you’re likely aware, this large segment of the population is beginning to reach post-retirement age and in the coming years, emergency calls are very likely to increase as this population requires emergency medical care. We also expect to see the same types of increase demand for employees throughout most segments of the health care industry.

Hospital and Emergency Facility Overcrowding

As the costs of health care and treatment increase, medical facilities such as hospitals are beginning to make an effort to treat more and more patients within a centralized facility and budget cuts have often led to closures of satellite facilities within certain hospital and emergency care provider systems. Due to this trend, many facilities have started getting to the point that they reach maximum capacities and are beginning to divert emergency service providers to alternate facilities as they are en route to a patient care facility. This leads to EMTs spending an increased amount of time on each call and as such, has started to increased the number of jobs and responders required to staff a given shift.

Retirement Factors

As with most career paths within the health care industry, a significant number of employees are reaching retirement age currently or over the next 5 to 10 years. Due to this trend, a large number of jobs may be left vacant as older employees depart either for retirement or to obtain positions in other areas of the health care industry based on their years of practical experience.

Lower Number of Volunteers

Due to the recent recession, we have seen a lower number of unpaid volunteers in positions within the emergency response fields. As employees are laid off or experience the elimination of paid jobs, they generally will either cut back or completely eliminate the amount of time that they spend in a volunteer position. These positions, such as volunteer firefighter and jobs, will have to be replaced with full-time paid employees.

All of these factors lead to a very positive outlook for EMT jobs and employment opportunities over the next decade. If you’re considering enrolling for EMT training to get started in this career, the time has never been better.