Should EMS Have a Degree Requirement For Paramedics?

Follow @AmboDriver

Short answer, YES.

It can’t and won’t happen overnight, and there will be some growing pains. And no, a degree doesn’t make you a better clinical provider.

But it does raise the bar for entry into our profession, which will hopefully lead to better seed corn for future crops of medics. It lends us legitimacy in the eyes of policy makers and other allied healthcare professions – and whether you choose to admit it or not, perceptions ARE important – and it makes for a more well-rounded EMS provider. If nothing else, a few technical writing, math and science prerequisites would go a long way to ensuring new medics have a well-developed bullshit sensor and can write reports that don’t read like a fourth-grader’s book report.

One of the most common objections to requiring college degrees is the cost. Who will pay for it, especially when it doesn’t earn you any extra pay, at least for the first couple generations of degreed medics?

Well, if you could get a tuition waiver on a college degree in EMS, would you take advantage of it?

That’s what Texas HB 3273 proposes to do. It would grant EMTs pursuing an EMS degree the same sort of tuition waiver granted to law enforcement officers and firefighters pursuing degrees in their chosen fields.

This is something Texas EMTs need to support.

Currently, the bill would only apply to EMTs employed by municipal governments or municipal EMS agencies, not private, for-profit providers. That is no reason not to support it, though, and I’d caution all of you to avoid lobbying for substitutions to the bill to add provisions for EMTs employed by private agencies. The perfect is the enemy of the good, and adding too much soon makes it financially burdensome.

This gets the camel’s nose under the tent, so to speak. It’s a good start.

Call your representatives NOW. It goes to committee Wednesday.