EMT Certification in College for Premed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The EMT crowd can be interesting...some kids can be sucked into some bad habits.

This. I had a highschool friend that got sucked into the EMT crowd and things didn’t pan out the way their parents (and friend) thought it would.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not really patient care. They are doing very little patient care. It’s mostly transporting people. Once in a great while you may give oxygen, do chest compression, give an epi pen, shock, apply a tourniquet. EMTs are mostly responding to non emergent situations and even in the emergencies, what they can actually do is very limited. They are mostly picking up and dropping off

Okay, you apparently don’t understand a subtle approach, so I’ll have to be more direct.
Working as an EMT may be the first time a person is exposed to other people’s blood, vomit, urine, and feces.
If they have a significant negative reaction that eliminates their desire to pursue a career in the medical field, isn’t it better to discover that sooner than later?

You could also just have them observe childbirth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You could also just have them observe childbirth.

That’s technically true, but as a practical matter, how easy would it be for a young person without some medical affiliation, e.g., employment, training program, etc, to wrangle an invitation to observe a birth?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The EMT crowd can be interesting...some kids can be sucked into some bad habits.

This. I had a highschool friend that got sucked into the EMT crowd and things didn’t pan out the way their parents (and friend) thought it would.

Fiction…..people are getting frustrated and making shit up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The EMT crowd can be interesting...some kids can be sucked into some bad habits.

This. I had a highschool friend that got sucked into the EMT crowd and things didn’t pan out the way their parents (and friend) thought it would.

Fiction…..people are getting frustrated and making shit up.

I don’t know about the “EMT crowd” thing, buts it’s absolutely true that EMTs don’t do a whole lot and are mostly transporting non emergent patients who don’t require anything at all medically from them (or sitting around). You are better off working just about any other patient care role in a hospital if your goal is patient exposure, medical care, and learning if the medical field is for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The EMT crowd can be interesting...some kids can be sucked into some bad habits.

This. I had a highschool friend that got sucked into the EMT crowd and things didn’t pan out the way their parents (and friend) thought it would.

Fiction…..people are getting frustrated and making shit up.

I don’t know about the “EMT crowd” thing, buts it’s absolutely true that EMTs don’t do a whole lot and are mostly transporting non emergent patients who don’t require anything at all medically from them (or sitting around). You are better off working just about any other patient care role in a hospital if your goal is patient exposure, medical care, and learning if the medical field is for you.

When DC joined, they were warned that they cannot be squeamish, and will be exposed to everything. The example they used was from the previous week where someone was cleaning their (still loaded) gun, and shot their privates off. They work in a very busy unit and get called out a lot. I can imagine how this would be different if the unit mostly served wealthy suburbs.

[Anonymous]

OP, DH is an MD and has many premed students scribes in his practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The EMT crowd can be interesting...some kids can be sucked into some bad habits.

This. I had a highschool friend that got sucked into the EMT crowd and things didn’t pan out the way their parents (and friend) thought it would.

Fiction…..people are getting frustrated and making shit up.

I don’t know about the “EMT crowd” thing, buts it’s absolutely true that EMTs don’t do a whole lot and are mostly transporting non emergent patients who don’t require anything at all medically from them (or sitting around). You are better off working just about any other patient care role in a hospital if your goal is patient exposure, medical care, and learning if the medical field is for you.

I agree with what EMTs do, it was the EMT Crowd comment. What I am a bit confused about though is why do pre health advisors push EMT as better than pretty much every other clinical experience opportunity? My kids pre-Med advisor (Harvard med, Harvard application panel) flat out said "EMT first".

My oldest did EMT when she was in college for premed. She landed exceptionally well but was also a 4 year starting college athlete at a very competitive program with high grades and scores so she was in a good spot at the start of the application process, So, was EMT useful or not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The EMT crowd can be interesting...some kids can be sucked into some bad habits.

This. I had a highschool friend that got sucked into the EMT crowd and things didn’t pan out the way their parents (and friend) thought it would.

Fiction…..people are getting frustrated and making shit up.

I don’t know about the “EMT crowd” thing, buts it’s absolutely true that EMTs don’t do a whole lot and are mostly transporting non emergent patients who don’t require anything at all medically from them (or sitting around). You are better off working just about any other patient care role in a hospital if your goal is patient exposure, medical care, and learning if the medical field is for you.

I agree with what EMTs do, it was the EMT Crowd comment. What I am a bit confused about though is why do pre health advisors push EMT as better than pretty much every other clinical experience opportunity? My kids pre-Med advisor (Harvard med, Harvard application panel) flat out said "EMT first".

My oldest did EMT when she was in college for premed. She landed exceptionally well but was also a 4 year starting college athlete at a very competitive program with high grades and scores so she was in a good spot at the start of the application process, So, was EMT useful or not?

Could it be that the situations EMTs deal with are raw/unsanitized, and can be high stress? Very different from shadowing a clinician, being a scribe, etc. which are more white collar while EMT is more blue collar?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The EMT crowd can be interesting...some kids can be sucked into some bad habits.

This. I had a highschool friend that got sucked into the EMT crowd and things didn’t pan out the way their parents (and friend) thought it would.

Fiction…..people are getting frustrated and making shit up.

I don’t know about the “EMT crowd” thing, buts it’s absolutely true that EMTs don’t do a whole lot and are mostly transporting non emergent patients who don’t require anything at all medically from them (or sitting around). You are better off working just about any other patient care role in a hospital if your goal is patient exposure, medical care, and learning if the medical field is for you.

When DC joined, they were warned that they cannot be squeamish, and will be exposed to everything. The example they used was from the previous week where someone was cleaning their (still loaded) gun, and shot their privates off. They work in a very busy unit and get called out a lot. I can imagine how this would be different if the unit mostly served wealthy suburbs.

It just occurred to me that y'all might be talking about hospital based/private EMTs, while I'm talking about the ones affiliated with fire departments/911.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The EMT crowd can be interesting...some kids can be sucked into some bad habits.

This. I had a highschool friend that got sucked into the EMT crowd and things didn’t pan out the way their parents (and friend) thought it would.

Fiction…..people are getting frustrated and making shit up.

I don’t know about the “EMT crowd” thing, buts it’s absolutely true that EMTs don’t do a whole lot and are mostly transporting non emergent patients who don’t require anything at all medically from them (or sitting around). You are better off working just about any other patient care role in a hospital if your goal is patient exposure, medical care, and learning if the medical field is for you.

I agree with what EMTs do, it was the EMT Crowd comment. What I am a bit confused about though is why do pre health advisors push EMT as better than pretty much every other clinical experience opportunity? My kids pre-Med advisor (Harvard med, Harvard application panel) flat out said "EMT first".

My oldest did EMT when she was in college for premed. She landed exceptionally well but was also a 4 year starting college athlete at a very competitive program with high grades and scores so she was in a good spot at the start of the application process, So, was EMT useful or not?

Probably because they don’t really know what EMTs do and it there is a misconception that they do a lot of patient care. But they really don’t. EMT counts as clinical hours and you can likely get a lot of homework and studying done while sitting in the van. Also more job availability than working in the hospital in a patient care role.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What drives me nuts about EMT clinical hours is the long shifts where many times nothing is happening. My kid is a HS certified EMT and now a college student. Kid also works as a CMA. When working in a doctor’s office or hospital as a CMA, about 90-95% of work hours is truly clinical (hands on, all the time). With EMT, it can be 20% for some shifts yet every hour clocked in counts as clinical. At times, my kid has been getting sbux with another EMT or playing on the phone or sitting around talking and all count as clinical hours.

But surely you realize that your kid isn't there to be getting something out of it other than playing on their phone, they are there to do the job when it needs to be done? And if there are no calls to be working on 80% of any given shift, that is just how it is?

Of course I realize just how it is but it seems absurd that clinical hours are counted like this when much of the time is not clinical work…when they are compared to applicants doing a job where all hours listed were actual clinical hours. The idea is to have significant (time wise) clinical experience - emt hours show this but it’s not factual (compared to a cna, cma, er tech, surgical assistant, etc). And i say this as the parent of an emt (who is also a cma).

You are incorrect when you say the "idea is to have significant (time wise) clinical experience." That is not the idea. The "idea" is mere exposure to patient care. That's it. Med students will have "significant clinical experience" in third and fourth year of med school, perhaps even before.

100% incorrect. If you were correct, then shadowing would NOT be separate from clinical experience. It would all be lumped in as the idea is "exposure" to patient care. For med school admissions, they look at volunteering separate from clinical experiences separate from shadowing separate from research. Clinical experience shows that the applicant has hundreds of hours of personal hands on experience in the clinical setting.

This is why you have to filter out the garbage claimed by people who have no idea what they are talking about.

Well, I work at a medical school. But by all means, keep blathering on about how you "have to filter out the garbage claimed by people who have no idea what they are talking about." I know exactly what I'm talking about.

At any rate, shadowing a physician does not necessarily expose students to direct patient care -- imagine shadowing a radiologist or pathologist. No patient care. It's still shadowing. Shadowing a surgeon, which lots of students love to do? Probably won't meet a conscious patient let alone have to deal with one (unless you shadow them during clinic hours which no one wants to do). At any rate, exposure to human patients and exposure to the health care system and what it means to work in it is what pre-application clinical hours are about. So that applicants understand what caring for other humans is like, and see that it requires some empathy. They don't need to know any real medicine before they get to med school, and to the extent that they do they sometimes have to unlearn it. We give them plenty of "hands on experience in the clinical setting" once they get here. Many, many hours of it. The clinical hours they amass for applications just show they have some vague exposure to what they are getting into, and that they didn't respond to it with "oh, hell no."

You could shadow a pediatrician for 900 hours. It does not turn it into clinical hours. They are listed as shadowing hours.

Tell you what. Since you're clearly lying: name the medical school and department you work at and I will call admissions and ask them if one has tons of shadowing hours of an internist or pediatrician if that is fine even if there are low/no clinical hours for admissions because... - and then I'll quote what you said above and refer them to your department where you work as the source of this information.

Can you read? What on earth makes you think I said shadowing is fine for clinical hours? I said the opposite. I specifically said shadowing does not necessarily even expose a student to direct patient care at all. Your reading comprehension is incredibly poor.

School and department you work in plz

What’s your home address?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are mostly picking up and dropping off

Do you live in Mayberry? Over four years here is what our EMT child dealt with as an EMT:

Stab wounds
GSWs
Amputations
Crush injuries
Full body burns
Suicide attempts and successes
Horrific MVAs
Child abuse
Elder abuse
Medevac
TBIs
So many overdoses

I guess it depends where you work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are mostly picking up and dropping off

Do you live in Mayberry? Over four years here is what our EMT child dealt with as an EMT:

Stab wounds
GSWs
Amputations
Crush injuries
Full body burns
Suicide attempts and successes
Horrific MVAs
Child abuse
Elder abuse
Medevac
TBIs
So many overdoses

I guess it depends where you work.

That's why I came to the conclusion that these folks are talking about hospital based or private ambulances, not ones that get called out for emergencies. These are the stats for the calls received.

https://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/reports/firefighters-departments/fire-department-run-profile-v22i1.html

[Anonymous]

If your son can manage to do it, it will be very helpful in terms of med school admission. But it's only one of many things he has to accomplish in college.