Can EMS really become a true profession without providing a clinical ladder that allows continued education and growth? Currently when a paramedic graduates from Paramedic school, that's really all there is. There are additional certifications to be obtained, but in obtaining them there is still very little room for growth in terms of ownership and authority. David Fifer and I transition from a conversation about degrees for Paramedics and to a conversation about the Paramedic Practitioner in part two of "One Degree of Separation: Paramedics and Practitioners".

Degrees shouldn't be a divisive topic in EMS, but they are. It's a also a topic that tends to be fatiguing, but there's a saying "When you're tired of saying it, people are just starting to hear it". David Fifer doesn't seem to have tired of the message, and I'm here for it. David and I got together to talk about degrees for Paramedics, where the nuance is in the discussion is, why we often sound like elitist pricks when we talk about degrees, and why the discussion has almost nothing to do with being able to start an IV or follow a protocol. This is part one of the discussion. Part two will transition over to the topic of the paramedic practitioner.

Nick Nudell returns one year following his debut appearance on my debut episode of my podcast. We get right into it, discussing EMS as an essential service, volunteerism, rural overtime, degrees for paramedics, the fire/EMS paradigm, and what paramedics need to do to become a profession. No stone is left unturned! One correction to a statistic mentioned within the episode- I cited 15% as the percentage of paramedics working full time in the field. This number is closer to 30% according to pooled sources.