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You have asked a wonderful
question, that provides ponder to every professional paramedic that currently
operates in EMS. Especially flight medicine. The old "why do nurses
make more than me" when we do the same job in aviation medicine. I
can only provide my opinion and thoughts on the idea and hopefully provide some
support.
The first thing we must not do
is piss off all of our nurse counterparts. It is frustrating to some of
us with the difference of payroll, however we must remember that
they've earned it, and we must respect their usefullness and knowledge base, and
experiences. Nurses and Paramedics are trained in two completely seperate
arenas, and we should never compare each other in the "vs." mode, which
happens so often in medicine today. How many times have you heard medics
and nurses, slamming each other, because "they don't know what their
doing". Well hello, of course they don't know what were doing, they are
not trained in what we do, and we are not trained in what they do. Our
education is similar in core knowledge, however much seperate in
application.
Why do nurses make more money
than paramedics? I don't know the reason, I have my theories, and here
they are. There is no professional organization representing the "paid
paramedic" in our local, state or federal goverment. Why do they pay us
our low pay rates? Because there are ten others behind you willing to do
your job and are excited to earn $6.50 an hour. Why do Professional
Paramedic/Fire Fighters make more money? Because the International
Association of Fire Fighters lobbies in congress, just like the Professional
Nurse associations for more money, career benefits and death benefits.
It's that simple, they pay us what they pay us, because they can.
What do we do about it? It
will be a long ways down the road until the "Professional Paramedics
Association" is formed, and becomes a powerful force in todays market. The
primary reason is because 90% of all "professional paramedics" work in mom and
pop "privatized" systems, they are sold out on an average of 5-8
years. Follow the trends of AMR - Rural/Metro some of the most
powerful private EMS systems in the world, they will sell you out in two
minutes if their contract does not earn a precentage of profit.
So you have worked for 10 years,
studied your ass off, earned every boy scout certificate avilable in current
pre-hospital medicine, and finally have landed a career as a flight
paramedic. Well suprise, a ruiling majorty of aviation programs
across america are privately managed "traditional contracts" barely surviving on
a balance of patient payments and hospital support contracts. In
my career as a flight paramedic, I worked for one of the most spirited
young flight programs to ever exist in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. We
operated for a couple of years, grew to a fleet of 4 aircraft,
almost 50 employees and really put a dent in the operational statistics of
one of the finest flight programs to ever exist. So what happend?
Money became involved and we were sold out, 30 employees lost their
jobs, an injured pilot was never supported by the company he worked for and
we waddled down the road and operate with a staff of 12. Am I
bitter? No, we are in private business and we were a ace
of spades in somebodies pocket, oh well...
Sorry for the long
email, but I have spent many hours confused and worried
about supporting my family. I pursued a career as a
professional fire fighter, and I fly on my days off, why?
Stability. That's the bottom line. My family comes before my
carrer. However if there ever is a Professional
Paramedics Association established, I will be a proud card carrying member
willing to stand up an support what we do.
Be Good, keep the Jesus nut
up.
Support your nurse and they will support
you.
Russell Griffin
North Texas LifeStar
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