What does a paramedic do?
You get to people on the worst day of their life, work out who needs help first, and keep them alive on the way to hospital.
Also called: EMT, ambulance crew.
A day looks like
- 1Check the ambulance before you drive it — oxygen, drugs, the defibrillator. Finding an empty cylinder at 3am is too late.
- 2A call comes in. You know the street, the age and one sentence. Everything else you find out when the door opens.
- 3You spend eleven minutes on someone's kitchen floor doing the most important work of your week.
- 4You hand over at the hospital in ninety seconds, restock, and go again.
Hardest part
Deciding who waits. You will treat someone who is quiet and walk past someone who is screaming, and you have to be right.
Best part
There is a version of your day where someone is alive at the end of it who would not otherwise have been.
How you actually become a paramedic
- At schoolFinish school with decent science — biology helps most.
- TrainingA paramedic degree, or start as an ambulance care assistant and train on the job.
- How longThree to five years after school, and you can be earning during most of it.
- Your first jobEmergency care assistant, driving and assisting a qualified paramedic.
Emergency care assistantParamedicCritical care or team leader
Frequently asked questions
- Is a paramedic the same as a doctor?
- No. A doctor mostly works in one building and sees you after you arrive. A paramedic comes to you, works in kitchens, roadsides and stairwells, and their job is to keep you stable long enough to reach the doctor.
- Do you need to be good at science to be a paramedic?
- You need to be good enough at biology to understand what a body is doing and why. You need to be better than that at staying calm, explaining things to frightened people, and making a decision without all the information.
- What is the hardest part of the job?
- Triage — deciding who is treated first. You will walk past someone shouting for help to reach someone silent, and you have to be right about it.
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