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This week we talk about the dreaded Recertification and why are we always doing it? Why do they make us recertify every 2 years? Is CE better or just a refresher best?
Featuring:
Chris Montera
Greg Friese
Buck Feris
April 9th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Brilliant! I agree with Chris that re-certification creates unecessary stress, is unecessary and untestested as a QA benchmark. I think that other QA measures are more effective such as random chart audits and feedback from the public. I firmly believe that re-testing stiffles critical thinking by forcing EMS personel to think algorithmically to avoid being punished. System analysis and CE, based on system wide idenbtifies short-comings is a more sound QA approach.
I also agree that all EMS personal who perform one or more controlled acts should be called paramedics. Anything less then that should be a non-transporting first responder level. There was some resistance to that concept here in Canada some years ago, but after impementing three levels of paramedics, Primary, Advanced and Critical Care, the dust settled. I think this is critical because we suffer from an indentity crisis worldwide because of the dozens of names by which we’re known. Look at our colleagues in health and in the other emergency services. They each share a common name with various subspecialties and specializations. All doctors are doctors, all nurses are nurses, all firefighters are firefighters…nee I say more. The public knows who they are. They know know us as well and this is our own fault.
Frankly the identity issue bothered me most at the time of 9-11 when the media refered to us as ” and other emergency services”.
Those who are territorial about the title “Paramedic” need to abandon their ego as I did years ago for the sake of sustaining and promoting the Paramedic profession.
cheers
May 7th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
I am growing rather fond of everyone being called “paramedic”. We need one identity for the public (and other health care providers) to recognize us as ligitimate. Currently most people just call us ‘Ambulance Drivers’ and that is simplistic and does nto accuratly reflect our role in emergency health care.