School of EMT | Paramedic
Overview
Paramedics are health professionals whose primary focus is to respond to, assess, and triage emergent, urgent, and nonurgent requests for medical care. They apply the basic and advanced knowledge and skills necessary to determine patient physiological, psychological, and psychosocial needs; administer medications; interpret and use diagnostic findings to implement treatment; provide complex patient care; and facilitate referrals and/or access to a higher level of care when the need of the patient exceeds the capability level of the paramedic. Paramedics often serve as patient care team members in hospitals or other healthcare settings to the full extent of their education, certification, licensure, and credentialing. Paramedics may work in community settings where they take on additional responsibilities monitoring and evaluating the needs of at-risk patients, as well as intervening to mitigate conditions that could lead to poor outcomes. Additionally, they help educate patients and the public in the prevention and/or management of medical, health, psychological, and safety issues.
Paramedics commonly facilitate medical decisions at an emergency scene and during transport. They work in a variety of specialty care settings including, but not limited to, ground and air ambulances, occupational, hospital, and community settings. Academic preparation enables paramedics to use a wide range of pharmacology, airway, and monitoring devices as well as critical thinking skills to make complex judgments, such as the need for transport from a field site, alternate destination decisions, the level of personnel appropriate for transporting a patient, and similar judgments.
The paramedic program duration is four terms that are approximately fourteen weeks in duration that will run consecutively over eighteen months.
The program is sanctioned by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau of Preparedness, EMS, and Systems of Care as an EMS Education Program Sponsor.