In the United States, the paramedic is an allied health professional whose primary focus is to provide advanced emergency medical care for patients who access Emergency Medical Services (EMS). This individual possesses the complex knowledge and skills necessary to provide patient care and transportation. Paramedics function as part of a comprehensive EMS response under physician medical direction. Paramedics often serve in a prehospital role, responding to Public safety answering point (9-1-1) calls in an ambulance. The paramedic serves as the initial entry point into the health care system. A standard requirement for state licensure involves successful completion of a nationally accredited Paramedic program at the certificate or associate degree level, though states like New York rely on their own state-administered testing and certifications for paramedic licensure rather than requiring completion of nationally accredited programs.
History The earliest ambulances were usually accompanied by a physician on emergency call. However, by the 1960s, ambulance services, while becoming ubiquitous, were poorly supported and staffed and unevenly trained. 50% of the ambulance services were provided by morticians, primarily because their hearses were able to accommodate patients on litters. In the best cases, ambulances were staffed with advanced first-aid level responders who were frequently referred to as "ambulance attendants," but there was little regulation or standardized training for those staffing these early emergency response vehicles or the required equipment carried inside, and active care during transportation was not possible in the vehicles of the time.
In September 1966 the National Academy of Sciences published a report titled "Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society". The report noted that soldiers who were seriously wounded on the battlefields of Vietnam had a better survival rate than those individuals who were seriously injured in motor vehicle accidents on California freeways. Early research attributed these differences in outcome to a number of factors, including comprehensive trauma care, rapid transport to designated trauma facilities, and a new type of medical corpsman; one who was trained to perform certain critical advanced medical procedures such as fluid replacement and airway management, which allowed the victim to survive the journey to definitive care.
Initial pilot projects Several communities began experimenting with more advanced emergency medical care in the late 1960s and early 1970s:
Pittsburgh's branch of Freedom House paramedics are credited as the first emergency medical technician (EMT) trainees in the United States. Pittsburgh's Peter Safar is referred to as the father of CPR. In 1967, he began training unemployed African-American men in what later became Freedom House Ambulance Service, the first paramedic squadron in the United States. Dr. Eugene Nagel trained city of Miami firefighters as the first U.S. paramedics to use invasive techniques and portable defibrillators with telemetry in 1967. In 1969, Los Angeles cardiologist Walter S. Graf created a "mobile critical care unit" to provide skilled medical care to coronary patients during emergency transportation to a hospital. The unit, a Chevrolet van equipped with a portable defibrillator, was staffed by a registered nurse. The same year his patient Kenneth Hahn, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, persuaded the Supervisors to approve a pilot program to train county firefighters as "Mobile Intensive Care Paramedics". A change in state law was necessary to allow personnel other than doctors and nurses to render emergency medical care. Hahn recruited two state legislators who wrote the Wedworth-Townsend Paramedic Act of 1970, signed into law by Governor Ronald Reagan on July 15, 1970, despite opposition from doctors, nurses, and attorneys. Paramedic training began the next month at the Freeman Memorial Hospital under Graf's direction. It was the first nationally accredited paramedic training program in the United States. Portland's Leonard Rose, M.D., in cooperation with Buck Ambulance Service, instituted a cardiac training program and began training ambulance personnel in ECG interpretation, CPR, and defibrillation in 1969. Baltimore's R Adams Cowley, who had founded the first trauma center in the US in 1958, devised the concept of integrated emergency care, negotiating to have first military helicopters and later state police helicopters brought to his Center for the Study of Trauma in 1969. Later, in 1973, Cowley would lead the first state-wide Division of Emergency Medical Services. In Seattle, the Medic One program at Harborview Medical Center and the University of Washington Medical Center, started by Leonard Cobb, M.D., began training firefighters in CPR in 1970. In 1972 the first standing civilian emergency medical helicopter transport service, Flight for Life opened in Denver, Colorado. Emergency medical helicopters were soon put into service elsewhere in the United States.
Popularization in culture A television producer, working for producer Jack Webb, of Dragnet and Adam-12 fame, was in Los Angeles' UCLA Harbor Medical Center, doing background research for a proposed new TV show about doctors, when he happened to encounter these 'firemen who spoke like doctors and worked with them'. This novel idea would eventually evolve into the Emergency! television series, which ran from 1972 to 1977, portraying the exploits of a new group called 'paramedics'. The show captured the imagination of emergency services personnel, the medical community, and the general public. When the show first aired in 1972, there were only 6 full-fledged paramedic units operating in 3 pilot programs (Miami, Los Angeles, Seattle) in the whole of the United States. No one had ever heard the term 'paramedic'; indeed, it is reported that one of the show's actors was initially concerned that the 'para' part of the term might involve jumping out of airplanes. By the time the program ended production in 1977, there were paramedics operating in every state. The show's technical advisor was a pioneer of paramedicine, James O. Page, then a Battalion Chief responsible for the Los Angeles County Fire Department 'paramedic' program, but who would go on to help establish other paramedic programs in the U.S., and to become the founding publisher of the Journal of Emergency Medical Services.
Evolution and maturity Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the field continued to evolve, although in large measure, on a local level. The term 'ambulance service' was replaced by 'emergency medical service' to reflect the change from a transportation system to a system that provides actual medical care. The training, knowledge base, and skill sets of both paramedics and emergency medical technicians (both competed for the job title, and 'EMT-Paramedic' was a common compromise) were typically determined by what local medical directors were comfortable with, what it was felt that the community needed, and what could actually be afforded. There were also tremendous local differences in the amount and type of training required, and how it would be provided. This ranged from in-service training in local systems, through community colleges, and ultimately even to universities. Dr. Jonathan Wasserberger helped create a teaching curriculum for emergency medical care in 1973.Wasserberger, J. (1974). "The EMT's Training and Future." In Findeiss, C.J. (ed). Emergency Medical Care, Symposia Specialists. New York, International Medical Book Corp., 297-304
During the evolution of paramedicine, a great deal of both curriculum and skill set was in a state of constant flux. Permissible skills evolved in many cases at the local level, and were based upon the preferences of physician advisers and medical directors. Treatments would go in and out of fashion, and sometimes, back in again. The use of certain drugs, Bretylium for example, illustrate this. In some respects, the development seemed almost faddish. Technologies also evolved and changed, and as medical equipment manufacturers quickly learned, the pre-hospital environment was not the same as the hospital environment; equipment standards that worked fine in hospitals could not cope well with the less controlled pre-hospital environment.
Physicians began to take more interest in paramedics from a research perspective as well. By about 1990, most of the 'trendiness' in pre-hospital emergency care had begun to disappear, and was replaced by outcome-based research and evidence-based medicine; the gold standard for the rest of medicine. This research began to drive the evolution of the practice of both paramedics and the emergency physicians who oversaw their work; changes to procedures and protocols began to occur only after significant outcome-based research demonstrated their need. Paramedics became increasingly accountable for their errors as well, and these too led to changes in procedure. Such changes affected everything from simple procedures, such as CPR, to changes in drug protocols and other advanced procedures. As the profession of paramedic grew, some of its members actually went on to become not just research participants, but researchers in their own right, with their own projects and journal publications.
Education The education and skills required of paramedics vary by state. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) designs and specifies a National Standard Curriculum for EMT training. Most paramedic education and certifying programs require that a student is at a minimum educated and trained to the National Standard Curriculum for a particular skill level. The National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians (NREMT) is a private, central certifying entity whose primary purpose is to maintain a national standard. NREMT also provides certification information for paramedics who relocate to another state.
Paramedic education programs can be as short as six months or as long as four years. An associate degree program is two years, often administered through a community college. Degree programs are an option, with two-year associate degree programs being most common, although four-year bachelor's degree programs exist. In contrast to Commonwealth countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, generally the minimum education is a two- to three-year degree at an accredited college or university for the entry-level paramedic, with four-year or even graduate degrees becoming the preferred credential in such jurisdictions. Many paramedic programs in the United States are through adult career and technical schools that provide a certificate of completion upon completion of the program. All programs must meet the current national standard curriculum. The institutions offering such training vary greatly across the country in terms of programs and requirements, and each must be examined by the prospective student in terms of both content and requirements where they hope to practice.
Regardless of education, all students must meet the same state requirements to take the certification exams. Most states also require passing the National Registry exam, which use Computer Based Testing (CBT).
Most locales and the national registry require that paramedics attend ongoing refresher courses and continuing medical education to maintain their license or certification.