However the steps of becoming  flight paramedic are the same as becoming a paramedic and that means you need to go through the traditional courses to become an EMT, start working on an ambulance service and then get more and more diplomas and accreditation until you can become a junior paramedic and then move on to become a senior paramedic. And it is at about this time that you can start thinking about getting a job an emergency helicopter or even airplane. Of course you will need to go through several more classes and get more accreditation but you should also start working first so that you will be able to know in which direction you should focus your studies. And, in fact, there are classes you will need to go through that will also require you to have some work experience before they admit you and allow you to start learning the advanced classes required by a flight paramedic.

However there is a bad news that you need to know before thinking of becoming a flight paramedic and that is that there are still easier ways to make that money. And the easiest of them all is to actually become a flight nurse. Of course you will need to take the RN courses and work as a nurse for at least 3 years but even in that particular work environment the nurse takes much less punishment than the medic, and is not put in such difficult situations and under the same stress as the medic. However the nurse does make more money and if a decision needs to be made her higher education clearly establishes her as the higher ranking person on that mission and so her decisions can overrule those of the flight paramedic.

The bottom line, though, is that the flight paramedic is still the essential element that makes first contact with a victim and his choices and actions are the ones that save the life of the patients. And because of that they easily earn the respect and even admiration of everyone on their team. So there are some wonderful things about the flight paramedic job that makes people, good people, work to get here.

And the first thing to mention when outlining the paramedic job description is that an ambulance is actually filled with EMTs of different trainings and there usually is just one paramedic who has the challenging task of coordinating the efforts of the entire team. So to work as a paramedic means not only to have the most advanced knowledge in first aid techniques and medicine but it also requires that you have the finest touch as a leader and be able to command absolute trust from the people you are working with so that they will obey your treatment choice above their own opinions when it comes to making those split second decisions. So, leadership is one of the most important aspects of the paramedic job descriptions.

But there are several other aspects of the paramedic job description that need to be taken into consideration and the most important ones refer to the detailed medical knowledge a senior paramedic needs to have. But in order to talk about that you need to know that every paramedic starts their career working as an EMT which is short for emergency medical technician. And while they both are trained in the same aspects of first AID like clearing blocked airways and resuscitating heart attack victims, the EMT is only allowed to perform the most basic tasks like body position or manual removal of blockages in the case of the airways and manual massage for heart attacks. However a paramedic can employ any number of techniques from tracheal intubation to manual defibrillators to administering drugs in concert with their treatment. So a deep knowledge of medical procedures and drug interaction is another one of the strongest requirements for the paramedic job description.

So taking into consideration the many difficulties and requirements of the paramedic job description it is only fair to say that the income provided by this job is very small indeed. However this is a job for those who truly have a passion for saving lives so it should come as no surprise that the training requirements imposed by the paramedic association are very difficult because, when you are in the business of saving lives, you need to be the absolute best. So perhaps an absolute dedication to helping those in need is the capital requirement of the paramedic job description.

So the first thing that everyone thinking about moving from paramedic to RN knows or should know is that  a nurse’s life is far more relaxed and the job hours are much more regular. But that is only the beginning because a nurse can earn up to 3 times the salary that a paramedic can make. So even if you were to compare a veteran paramedic doing over time to a regular nurse who is not doing overtime their incomes would be about the same. So, ultimately, the pay of a nurse is better and the working hours are more regular so people who are still working as paramedics do so simply because they want to be able on the front lines where their help is invaluable and where they are actually saving lives. So, even though there are certain advantages to switching from paramedic to RN there are also some disadvantages.

And if you are thinking about what one loses on the move from paramedic to RN you need to also know that some of the licenses that paramedics hold no longer apply to nurses. And it all starts with the function of the paramedic which is to do everything they can to save lives while the nurse’s job is to maintain lives. And the difference may be subtle but it is there and it means that more care needs to be put into the medicines that are provided to the patient and their interactions with other treatments he may have received in the hospital. So a nurse cannot provide the same medications that are available to a paramedic and cannot even use some of their techniques simply because, in a hospital setting, they need to be handled by a doctor. But as far as disadvantages go these are the biggest ones in moving from a paramedic to RN role.

As for the schooling that is required to make the switch from paramedic to RN, there are indeed several online courses that you could take but those will make getting a job as a nurse rather hard because, as is the case of the paramedic job no one really trusts an online diploma. So, although it is more difficult and it takes more time it is highly recommended that you take an offline course like the ones provided by Excelsior. That way you can make sure that your transition from paramedic to RN will be a smooth one and you will have a good work place.

And as much as the paramedic courses themselves are concerned the basic EMT training does go through them all very diligently, however there are grave differences in the quality of information and the depths of knowledge they will take you. So while the EMT training on airway management will allow you to assess, manual reposition, oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal airway adjunct, manual remove obstructions and suction, the real paramedic course will move you deeper into such techniques as rapid sequence induction, surgical airway procedures including needle cricothyrotomy and surgical cricothyrotomy. So it should be obvious to you just from this first important course to paramedics that the EMT training is just the first stepping stone and then the additional paramedic course, coupled with the experience gathered working on the ambulance are what makes a senior paramedic.

So let’s continue with the paramedic courses and see the other great differences between an EMT training and the knowledge that is required for a real paramedic position. And the EMT breathing courses will get you familiar with such concept and techniques as obstructed airway maneuver, passive oxygen administration by nasal cannula, rebreathing and non-rebreathing mask, active oxygen administration by bag valve mask and assessments techniques that take into account the rate of breathing, the effort made to breathe and even what the skin color tells you about breathing. However after a suitable testing period further courses can be explored to allow a senior paramedic the use of mechanical transport ventilators, active oxygen administration by surgical airway and decompression of chest cavity using needle or valve device making that real paramedic courses the gateway to a real cool aspects of this profession.

And, speaking about the cool vs lame aspects of the paralegal courses while the EMT circulation training will only give you the ability to assess the state of the circulation, the blood pressure and skin color which will allow you to position the patient to enhance the circulation and to stop hemorrhages by applying tourniquets the paramedic course that you can go on after you’ve had the chance to practice these basic EMT techniques will allow you to do some even more extraordinary techniques. So a senior paramedic, after a lot of training will be allowed to employ intravenous plasma volume expanders, blood transfusion, intraosseous (IO) cannulation (placement of needle into marrow space of a large bone) and central venous access which are subjects treated only in the post EMT training paramedic courses.

And even when it comes to the most dangerous accident that paramedics see most often the paramedic courses allow a senior paramedic to do much more for his patients that the EMT training can teach. We are talking of course, about cardiac arrest situations where an EMT is only trained to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation, airway management, manual ventilation and use an automatic external defibrillator while the paramedic course that ensue will allow you to also use various drugs, use a manual defibrillator and external pacing of the heart.

And finally the advanced paramedic courses will allow you to use a significantly expanded drug list, in some jurisdictions advanced levels of paramedics are permitted to administer any drug, as long as they are familiar with it, and may have limited authority to prescribe them. On the other hand the EMTs only have access to very limited number of drugs that are Low-risk and immediate requirements, e.g., aspirin and nitroglycerin (chest pain), oral glucose and glucagon (diabetes), epinephrine (allergic reaction), salbutamol (asthma), sometimes naloxone (narcotic overdose). So even though the EMT is a very powerful position that will save a lot of lives if the point of the game is to be able to give every patient exactly what they need and when they need it, it would be much more important to actually go through the advanced paramedic courses and become a senior paramedic.

So if you still want an answer on how to become a paramedic than you should know that the first step to becoming a paramedic is to become an emergency medical technician or EMT. This is the only standardized training in the United States and it lasts for 16 to 24 months. That is why certain specialist will say that you need to go through a 2 year preparatory training before becoming a paramedic but the fact is that this training will only allow you to become an EMT. We have already talked about what are the main differences between an EMT and a paramedic in the paramedic training article so we are not going to go into that right here. Suffice it to say that after the EMT training is complete you will be able to start working on ambulances and on other emergency systems. Although this is not a mandatory part of the steps involved in how to become a paramedic it is highly recommended especially because there are so many directions that you could take by following this career.

And another reason why in learning how to become a paramedic you need to start work as soon as you have finished your EMT training is that there are a lot of details about this job that simply cannot be thought but that can be crucial for you. That is to say, for example, that if you have never given mouth to mouth resuscitation to a real, dyeing person you cannot know what enormous pressures one feels as they are battling for that person’s life. And there is nothing that motivates you more to learn how to do a tracheotomy or how to use a manual defibrillator more than having that person die despite your best efforts. So you could say that working as an EMT is the make or break part of a paramedic’s life because if he or she can take the long hours, the stress of handling patients, the pressure of being the first on the scene of an accident and still learn from those experiences and still want to grow in this profession than that person really has what it takes to become a paramedic. And the best thing about this particular process is that it will show you the paths you can take and the lessons you need to learn on how to become a paramedic and what other training you need to take.