Nurse V Paramedic

You have to be caring for paramedic as well :P you spend a lot of time with patients and most of them aren't 'big sick'. I didn't write anything about the emergency services in my PS. Just what skills I had, how I got them and how they are relevant to this course/job. Along with work experience and an experience I had near the time where my friend went unconcious (hypoglacemia) and I had to act.

an interesting conundrum let's bust some myths first

Paramedics do not have 'more autonomy' - it's all illusory
- Paramedics are monitored minute to minute by lay management thanks to AVLS
- Despite JRCALC being guidelines, the clinical governance people in trusts and the HPC view them as protocols and deviation is used against paramedics on a routine basis ...

Paramedics do not have 'more skills' many nurses have 'more skills' if you want to play pissing contests over psychomotor skills - Intubation is a rarely used skill and there questions if it should remain a core paramedic skill vs supraglottic airways and/or more targetted use of a limited number of practitioners who have more highly developed airway management skills, cannulation is a skill which increasing number of RNs undertake and in Acute and emergency care settings the RNs are often doing more venepunctures/ cannulations that paramedics do - especially as 'prophylactic' cannulation in the field is deprecated due to infection control reasons...

Professional development opportunities for paramedics remain poor, especially with he ORCON fixated failure of many ECP schemes - some services do not encourage staff to develop their practice - where extending and expanding roles in Nursing are the norm if not an expectation...

There are limited opportunites for paramedics outside the Ambulance service , especially if you want a regular income .

it's not all blue lights and saving lives ... there are many 999 calls which are Total Wastes of Ambulance Time , meanwhile genuinely poorly patients are being seen by middle tier staff as 'urgents' and Cat C emergencies are not an ORCON priority, until they time out ...

wow you sound like you are fond of paramedics....

paramedics can do quite a lot, like needle decompression, needle cricothyroidotomy, gain IO access, intubate (paramedics do it more than you think), surgical airways, thoracotomy, thoracostomy and more..Also are now quite a lot of progression opportunities available in a hospital setting.

I see your comments are quite old, I hope your perception of paramedics has changed with the times..

You're right, you can't really provide an informed answer. There's a lot more to nursing than just helping old ladies and administering medication.