Any Paramedics out there?

[Medic741]

Hey there! Wanted to hear from some previous paramedics who went the DO route, what was it like making the transition to physician/medical student? Any advice/thoughts for a medic about to start medical school is greatly appreciated!

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[dfib slim]

Hey there! Wanted to hear from some previous paramedics who went the DO route, what was it like making the transition to physician/medical student? Any advice/thoughts for a medic about to start medical school is greatly appreciated!

I was an EMT for 8 years. Feel free to PM me if you want.

 

[racerwad]

Hey there! Wanted to hear from some previous paramedics who went the DO route, what was it like making the transition to physician/medical student? Any advice/thoughts for a medic about to start medical school is greatly appreciated!

I was a paramedic for a while prior to med school. The transition was harder than I had anticipated, but a lot of other things were easier or less stressful. It's hard to offer advice without knowing your specific question, but just enjoy the experience and stay humble. Your experience is useful in specific settings (airways, for example) but you'll learn there is a huge gulf between being a paramedic and a physician. Don't be that person that acts like they know it all.

 

[InternistDO]

I was an EMT for 5 years before med school, most of it full time with a busy service.

You'll have a leg up speaking to patients, and maybe in cardio and pulmonary physiology, but I would say that for 90% of M1 and M2 you'll be in the same boat as everyone else. From what I hear, it makes your EM rotations easier as well. I think the biggest advantage is actually having an idea of what working in a health care setting is like, so you're unlikely to hit 3rd year rotations and suddenly realize that you actually hate seeing patients or something like that.

 

[CajunMedic]

OMS-3 here with 15 years in EMS. The hardest thing for me initially was going to a "normal" schedule. I was a permanent night-shifter for years. Experience really helped in the "hands-on" courses in the pre-clinical years (BP, Physical Exams, EKG reading, etc.). It's definitely helped on rotations, you'll already be comfortable with interacting with patients and some of the workings of the hospital. Feel free to PM me. Good Luck and Congrats!

 

[wxman393]

Same as CajunMedic. Worked in EMS for about 15 years prior to med school. Cardio block I felt was the "easiest" but neuro and biochem kicked my ass. Other than being familiar with Brown Sequard and the various head bleeds, I was struggling just like everyone else. It definitely helped when it came time for skills (IV, IO, tubes, etc). I still moonlight as a medic for our local EMS when I have some free time. Definitely a huge difference in fund of knowledge.


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[pericardium]

Paramedic here as well, and currently a first year. Cardio block was slightly easier for me, but you still have to put in the work. At the same time, being out of school for such a long time made it a difficult transition from working life to school life and I ended up performing poorly on my first few exams. After I got the chance to adapt, my grades improved significantly.

Unless you have a specific question, I can't think of too much other than the start of school will come as a shock to you and it may take some time to adapt. Just like everyone else, feel free to PM me or just reply to this thread if you have any specific questions.

 

[Stephanopolous]

I second what everyone here has said. I've been working as a medic for approximately 8 years. I did the testing/process for obtaining a license here where I'm going to school and still pull about 2 shifts a month (more in the summer). It definitely helped me with things like airway/IM/IV injections, etc also standardized patient encounters feel natural and I rarely had to spend any time prepping for them. The best piece of advice I've seen in this thread is to stay HUMBLE. You know a lot of street medicine but that doesn't always translate (often does NOT) to what you learn in medical school. Don't act like you know it all and go with the flow.

Agree with above poster that if you've been out of school for a while then med school could sneak up on you and kick your ass at first (it certainly did that to me) but on the bright side we're used to adapting quickly to changing situations right? So you'll figure it out and bounce back. I did fairly rapidly and finished my first year with grades that exceeded my goals/expectations.

Edit: cardio and respiratory blocks were my strongest ones and I definitely attribute that to my training.

 

[cbrons]

I was a paramedic for a while prior to med school. The transition was harder than I had anticipated, but a lot of other things were easier or less stressful. It's hard to offer advice without knowing your specific question, but just enjoy the experience and stay humble. Your experience is useful in specific settings (airways, for example) but you'll learn there is a huge gulf between being a paramedic and a physician. Don't be that person that acts like they know it all.

Seconded. You will learn very quickly that the "medicine" you know from being a paramedic is less than .01% of what you will have to know as a physician. Your advantage as a paramedic or EMT will be in having experience relating to patients and maybe knowing a couple of emergency procedures. But even in emergency medicine that is a very, very small part of what an M.D. does/knows. If you act like you know-it-all as a paramedic, it's because you're too much of an ignoramous to know how much you don't know, and as a medical student you will be knocked down to planet earth at terrifying speed.

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[cbrons]

I second what everyone here has said. I've been working as a medic for approximately 8 years. I did the testing/process for obtaining a license here where I'm going to school and still pull about 2 shifts a month (more in the summer). It definitely helped me with things like airway/IM/IV injections, etc also standardized patient encounters feel natural and I rarely had to spend any time prepping for them. The best piece of advice I've seen in this threat is to stay HUMBLE. You know a lot of street medicine but that doesn't always translate (often does NOT) to what you learn in medical school. Don't act like you know it all and go with the flow.

Agree with above poster that if you've been out of school for a while then med school could sneak up on you and kick your ass at first (it certainly did that to me) but on the bright side we're used to adapting quickly to changing situations right? So you'll figure it out and bounce back. I did fairly rapidly and finished my first year with grades that exceeded my goals/expectations.

Edit: cardio and respiratory blocks were my strongest ones and I definitely attribute that to my training.

Cardiac and respiratory physiology in paramedic school is no where even remotely as in-depth as what you get in medical school. I think you are possibly over-crediting paramedic training here.

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[pericardium]

Cardiac and respiratory physiology in paramedic school is no where even remotely as in-depth as what you get in medical school. I think you are possibly over-crediting paramedic training here.

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I agree that the training we receive in medic school is nowhere near as in depth, but what I've found is that the things that I learned serve as a scaffolding for information that we learn, which made it easier to learn/memorize details, because I had an idea of where things fit in. I don't think it was a coincidence that cardio block was my strongest

 

[Stephanopolous]

Cardiac and respiratory physiology in paramedic school is no where even remotely as in-depth as what you get in medical school. I think you are possibly over-crediting paramedic training here.

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I'm drawing this conclusion more off of all of the years of continuing ed more so than what I learned in paramedic school. Our EMS system had CME's taught by EM residents so we went more into the physiology and advanced care side of respiratory/cardiac cases. I also completed critical care training so that influences it as well. This definitely depends on what type of paramedic we're talking about.

 

[joeDO2]

My experience was that being a paramedic had little application to medical school, however medical school had little application to being a doctor.

 

[cbrons]

I'm drawing this conclusion more off of all of the years of continuing ed more so than what I learned in paramedic school. Our EMS system had CME's taught by EM residents so we went more into the physiology and advanced care side of respiratory/cardiac cases. I also completed critical care training so that influences it as well. This definitely depends on what type of paramedic we're talking about.

Paramedic CME is also nowhere near as in-depth. Trust me my friend, I know the feeling, but once you get into the latter years of medical school, heck even through M1 physiology, you will see that what I am saying is true. Paramedic education/CME is nothing even remotely in the same ballpark as what you will be expected to know and understand as a physician.