I sometimes think that "Yes I have been in EMS long enough", Long enough to see the transformation of EMS from funeral homes, to hospital based, to Private, to County 3rd service....and next.....who knows.

The pendulum has swung from "Stay and play, to load and go, to fly em' high". The merit badge to which you refer is earned from the den master (or mother as the case may be). This "aid the apprentice" mentality is very prevalent in medicine. Young Physicians learn from more senior Physicians, and the skills are passed down from generation to generation.

Nurses have the same skill progression from the more senior nurses (or journeyman nurses) to the younger (apprentice) nurses; the skills are learned and passed on to the next generation. For those of us that remember the TV show Emergency, Roy was the senior paramedic (or Master Paramedic) to Johnny's Apprentice.

However "Master Paramedics" are leaving the business, they are being used up and discarded, and Detroit would call this planned obsolescence. Whereby you create a paramedic, use "it" till it breaks, and just get a new one. The local community College is churning them out as fast as they can, and some agencies are even having the schools (or factories) come to the agency to make them. This using up and discarding of paramedics is never more prevalent than in System Status type agencies.

And then Medical directors look at the bottom line of the Q/A forms and wonder "Why are my paramedics not able to perform a certain skill?" for this discussion it is intubation, but next it will be IVs, or another advanced invasive skill that was taught to us by the "Master Paramedic" to the apprentice.

So ask yourself "What Would Roy Do?"

 Kennard Skaggs CCEMT-P, FTO/CTO