Battles of an ambulance driver

When people ask me what I do, I always reply the same thing “I am a Paramedic”. I usually get the same question “wow that’s better than an EMT right?” To which I always respond “nowadays we are all the same”.

Unfortunately too many people including the public, our own governing bodies, hospital staff and possibly the most disappointing, our own senior staff do not see the increasing standards we as practitioners are required to meet.

In the 1950’s and 60’s if you called an ambulance in Canada you would expect a station wagon or Hurst to come to your house, the driver would assist you to lay in the back and he would drive you to the hospital. In the late 60’s and 70’s EMS was beginning to be developed with E.M.T classes about 40hrs long and CPR standards coming into effect. Nowadays Paramedics at the basic level have to attend 375hrs of classroom time, 48hrs in an urban Emergency Room and 3 weeks to a month actively taking calls in an urban ambulance.

There are 3 levels of Paramedic in Canada, Primary care paramedic, advanced care paramedic, and Critical care paramedic. Some provinces also employ Emergency medical responders (EMR) for their ambulance companies, however they are usually reserved to industrial, and low volume rural services. There is no longer EMT level education offered in Canada.


So where do we need to go from here? How can we improve professionalism in EMS? I believe the answer is education. Education of the public and of the professionals themselves.

As paramedics we should not accept the title EMT. Our knowledgebase and skills deserve better recognition than those “Scoop and scoot” EMT’s of yesterday.


We as paramedics must recognize the progression in EMS and evolve with it, not fight it. With out an in depth knowledge of the human body how can we expect the college of physicians and surgeons to protocol us to effectively treat our patients. A “good medic” should not be judged by the years of service, or their call volume, they should be judged by their ability to thoroughly assess a patient, form a proper differential diagnosis, implement a treatment plan, and properly document and act as a patient advocate.

We must not tolerate incompetence from our paramedics. We need to reassess our continuing education Canada wide, and implement standards. The “Good old boy” mentality of rural EMS must end now. Employees should be chosen based on professionalism and knowledge. An individual should be appointed a position within our profession because they are the right person for the job, not because they are our friends. In this business we see incompetence all too often, yet these people are still called “good medics”, are they really good medics…NO. They are good people who are poor at their job. We cannot turn a blind eye toward ignorance any longer; we must expose the incompetence and demand it be rectified. Employees must conform to the NOCP’s put forth by our governing bodies. Any practitioners not willing to conform must not hold back EMS, but recognize their limits in this business and step aside.

All volunteers must become paid. All paid practitioners continue to complain about low wages for EMS professionals Canada wide. If the public and the employers know there are people who are willing to do our job for free, why would they pay us a wage? Volunteers hurt the profession and hold back our careers.

We as paramedics must not settle to just “do because that’s what we were taught” we have to “do with a purpose”. Their can no longer be room made available in this business for closed minded individuals. Every assessment we do, every treatment we initiate should be able to backed up with a physiological and moral reason.

Only when we resolve the issues within our profession can we ask the public for their support in our rally for proper compensation and recognition.