EMSA recruiter Christopher Stevens talks about what makes EMSA such a great team to be part of.
What sets EMSA apart as a place to work for EMTs and Paramedics?
What sets us apart at EMSA is that all of our protocols are evidence-based medicine. We don’t just throw out the latest greatest toys or try new meds just because they’re the latest trend. Our independent Medical Director and Medical Control Board believe in evidence. If it’s been proven and it’s shown to work and shown to be effective, we’re going to do that and we’re going to implement it.
We’ve got more than 500 medics between Tulsa and Oklahoma City. So everyone is thoroughly, thoroughly trained in the academy and in our refresher courses that are given throughout the year before they are cut loose to work on their own. A lot of services don’t have the luxury to do all of that in-house training and the extensive orientation process that we have in place at EMSA.
What kind of training do you do for EMTs and Paramedics?
We believe heavily in training at EMSA. We believe in scenario-based training while you’re in-house. Because once you get out there, you’re going to remember that. You’ll fall back on that training once you get into a situation where you go, “Oh, man, I remember this one.”
Like any good memorization, it’s going to help you out there. We don’t leave anything to chance. We’re training for all possible scenarios, and there’s always going to be another one that pops up.
But hopefully we’re going to prepare you mentally and physically to get out there and do what’s expected of you.
What kind of calls do your Paramedics and EMTs run into?
We’re primarily a metro area that we service, but we do cover some rural areas as well. So you may go from running a cardiac arrest to a gunshot wound to a rural farm accident to someone that’s rolled a tractor over on themselves or someone that hit a cow or a horse out on some country road. We try our best to prepare you for just about anything you could encounter.
In our training, we make our mega codes (a “code” means that someone is in cardiac arrest) super hard. When we give you something in the mega code, we give you a scenario that is near impossible for you to manage, but we want to test your critical thinking. We want to test your knowledge or test how thoroughly you’ve grasped our protocols. And we want to see what you can throw at that situation so that when you do get out there and you have that nightmare call, you’ve already experienced something way worse in the classroom so that you fall back on that training.
So we think we do it the best. We’ve got a great clinical team and we only put you out in the field armed with protocols and evidence-based medicine and the knowledge to apply that.
Start Your EMT Career at EMSA
Become a part of the EMSA team today. Apply now or contact our recruiters for more information.