January 17, 2025 • 9 mins
Paramedic to RN
Season 3, Episode 3: Should EMTs Go To Paramedic School or Go Straight to Nursing School?
Watch the video recording of this episode on the Paramedic2RN YouTube Channel:
//I'd be honored to have you as a Subscriber and welcome your thoughts and questions in the Comments.\\
This episode is in response to viewer @JHELD44 's question: "What would you recommend to someone who is already an EMT and considering going into nursing. Should they go to paramedic or look for a nursing program and just start a 2 year ADN program?"
*View my written response to their question at the end of the YouTube video using the link above.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey guys, hey welcome back.
(00:03):
Man, it's good to be back with you guys.
Man, I tell you.
So just kind of give you guys a little update.
Listen, I can't believe I started next week,
my next semester grad school,
and I'm getting into some of the advanced stuff
like advanced patho.
Listen, if you guys can see this book right here,
(00:25):
this John Norma's book,
this is advanced patho I got to take.
So as you guys can see, man, look,
it's about to get real for me.
So I just thought I'd go in and share that with you.
But the reason I'm having this podcast today
is that I wanted to kind of address a question I got.
(00:47):
And this question was probably one of the best questions
I've gotten so far.
And the question was,
what would you recommend to someone who's already an EMT
considering going to nursing?
Should they go paramedic or look for a nursing program
and just start a two year program?
This was a lot to unpack.
I wrote a pretty detailed answer,
(01:08):
but I thought I might do better if I can just come
and just kind of talk about it a little bit.
So I just want to first start off by saying
to this question,
my first question I want to ask you is what is your goal?
The reason why I'm asking is,
is there any particular area of nursing
that you feel that a paramedic would help you?
(01:31):
For example, here's the pros of being a paramedic slash nurse.
Your medic experience will help you with things like
your drips or your cardiac meds or 12 lead interpretations,
IV skills, those things.
Yeah, your paramedic skills can help you,
especially when you start to look at things like
the way you assess your patient.
(01:53):
But the cons of it is,
you know, that is a different type of assessment.
Your nursing assessment, paramedic assessment
are two different things.
It's two different approaches to patient care.
It's two different thought processes
and it's a different way to look at your patient.
But again, like what is your goal?
(02:15):
Because to me, the best area skill for skill
for paramedic trained nurse is really critical care
transport and flight.
So most people probably thought I was going to say the ED,
not really because the ED is really not set up
for you to be autonomous.
The ED honestly is the mid levels or the doctor
(02:38):
go see the patient and pretty much give you an order set
to follow and you follow that order set.
So it's not set up in an autonomous way.
And that's why a lot of us, me being a medic trained nurse,
sometimes I used to get frustrated being in the ED
because I felt like I should be more autonomous
versus just kind of sitting around waiting on orders
(03:00):
if that kind of makes sense.
But I think my main point for this one too is
if you haven't been to school yet,
that means you really don't have any medic experience.
So there's really no need for you to go to paramedic school
because the medic skills will help you.
Even if you finish school and you're paramedic,
(03:20):
those skills won't help you, but your EMT skills would.
And let me explain what I mean by this.
As an EMT, you have good hands-on patient care experience.
That is probably hands down the thing that would
make you better than anyone else
(03:42):
is your hands-on experience,
especially like dealing with things
like dealing with the family.
It takes nurses a little bit to gain skills
if you really don't have patient care
on how to deal with the family.
Well, when you're out there as a paramedic,
you and your partner, you can kind of,
when you go into a house, it's just you and your partner.
You may have law enforcement on scene to kind of help,
(04:05):
but sometimes it's hard.
You're trying to deal with someone's mom and the son
that's back there making like little,
smart, threatening comments.
And you just kind of like, what, do we lead the scene?
Do we call law enforcement?
How do we call law enforcement?
Or how do we deescalate the situation?
So you learn really good deescalation skills
coming from EMS.
(04:27):
Also, you familiar with the medications
because I remember working in services
when I was working as a truck 911 medic,
not only did I do medication inventory,
but my partner did medication inventory too.
So they was about as familiar as I was.
They knew if Cartesian was over 30 days old,
they already knew like, hey, well, you know,
we need to go in and let this go.
(04:48):
You know, and also you can do a patient assessment.
You're trained to spot improvement or decline
in a patient's condition.
And that's all you really need to be honest with you.
As far as basic nursing
and the way the health care system is concerned,
they view EMT and paramedic the same.
(05:08):
And it's sad to say, but most outside of EMS
don't know the difference between EMT or paramedic.
They look at you just the same.
As a paramedic, I've been called EMT
I don't know how many times.
Not saying that I don't like being called an EMT,
but my title is paramedic.
(05:29):
And what I mean by most people in healthcare,
I'm talking nurses, physicians, mid-levels,
which are PAs, unless they were EMS,
nurse practitioners, pharmacists, physical therapy,
occupational therapy, the whole shebang.
None of them know the difference
between an EMT and a paramedic.
So just because you're paramedic,
don't give your leg up if you're already EMT,
(05:52):
because we're kind of viewed the same.
Now, if you are an EMT,
there's really no need for your medic
unless you want to work in critical care flight.
And then too, that really depends
on your state officer EMS and your flight service.
And he was lying to me about it.
(06:13):
In my state, if you want it to be a flight nurse,
they require you to have a pre-hospital cert.
So it can be EMT or paramedic.
That's usually for things like seeing calls,
because you want a pre-hospital cert to do a scene call.
So most services here where I am,
most hospital systems tend to fly medic RN,
because the traditional sense is
(06:34):
your medic will take the scene call,
whereas your RN is more ICU based,
and they can do the in-facility transport.
But all in all, the medics and nurses do the same job,
if you kind of understand what I'm saying.
And also, but for services that fly RN to RN,
(06:55):
then they tend to require dual credentials.
And those are for nurses.
And for those nurses, there are RN to paramedic bridges.
Some medics, I ain't gonna lie to you,
I used to hear a lot of medics get really upset
with the RNs that would go and get their paramedic
via bridge instead of just going through
(07:16):
a con ed paramedic course,
because they felt that they didn't get
the really true experience it took to be a paramedic.
Because most of these RN to medic bridges
are just like maybe eight weeks.
It's online didactics,
and you may do a couple of weeks clinicals.
And that's kind of scary to kind of think of,
hey, you got a medic that may say,
(07:37):
hey, I wanna work a little bit in 911,
and they only got eight weeks of, you know,
medic training and online
and a couple of weeks of truck clinicals.
Kind of looking at them in a different light.
Me, I'm not partial.
I see the pros and cons to both.
I don't wanna dig too far into that,
because that's really subjective.
But it's just the point that there are some bridges
(07:59):
out there if you are RN,
and you want to come back and get your medic.
So here's my tips for you.
And I think in closing,
one of the things I will tell you is that if you are EMT,
and you're considering nursing,
don't worry about paramedic right now.
What I would do is I would just focus
on my nursing prereqs,
(08:21):
focus on your entry exam,
and go through a two year ADN program.
And if you want to do your medic later,
do the RN to medic bridge,
because that'll probably be your best bet time wise.
Don't make no sense to go through
a year long paramedic,
kind of program to become a medic,
then go get your ADN.
(08:42):
That don't make no sense.
Now, if you do go that route,
I'm just gonna let you know,
medics won't like you,
but they don't pay your bills either.
So, as I thank you for your time,
as always keep those comments coming.
For example, some of you got really great questions
and your questions can give me really good content
that I can dig and give you guys.
(09:04):
Keep those comments coming,
subscribe, pass the word.
And as always guys, happy nursing.
I just wanted to take a moment to let you know
how much I really enjoyed your support.
If you've been listening to me for a while,
I'd like to hear from you.
So just leave a comment from time to time,
hit the like button and just let me know
that you really enjoyed this episode.
Make sure that you share the episode with others
(09:24):
and of course subscribe and follow me.
My goal is to help as many people as possible
make the transition from paramedic to RN.
So thanks as always.
Hey guys, hey welcome back.
(00:03):
Man, it's good to be back with you guys.
Man, I tell you.
So just kind of give you guys a little update.
Listen, I can't believe I started next week,
my next semester grad school,
and I'm getting into some of the advanced stuff
like advanced patho.
Listen, if you guys can see this book right here,
(00:25):
this John Norma's book,
this is advanced patho I got to take.
So as you guys can see, man, look,
it's about to get real for me.
So I just thought I'd go in and share that with you.
But the reason I'm having this podcast today
is that I wanted to kind of address a question I got.
(00:47):
And this question was probably one of the best questions
I've gotten so far.
And the question was,
what would you recommend to someone who's already an EMT
considering going to nursing?
Should they go paramedic or look for a nursing program
and just start a two year program?
This was a lot to unpack.
I wrote a pretty detailed answer,
(01:08):
but I thought I might do better if I can just come
and just kind of talk about it a little bit.
So I just want to first start off by saying
to this question,
my first question I want to ask you is what is your goal?
The reason why I'm asking is,
is there any particular area of nursing
that you feel that a paramedic would help you?
(01:31):
For example, here's the pros of being a paramedic slash nurse.
Your medic experience will help you with things like
your drips or your cardiac meds or 12 lead interpretations,
IV skills, those things.
Yeah, your paramedic skills can help you,
especially when you start to look at things like
the way you assess your patient.
(01:53):
But the cons of it is,
you know, that is a different type of assessment.
Your nursing assessment, paramedic assessment
are two different things.
It's two different approaches to patient care.
It's two different thought processes
and it's a different way to look at your patient.
But again, like what is your goal?
(02:15):
Because to me, the best area skill for skill
for paramedic trained nurse is really critical care
transport and flight.
So most people probably thought I was going to say the ED,
not really because the ED is really not set up
for you to be autonomous.
The ED honestly is the mid levels or the doctor
(02:38):
go see the patient and pretty much give you an order set
to follow and you follow that order set.
So it's not set up in an autonomous way.
And that's why a lot of us, me being a medic trained nurse,
sometimes I used to get frustrated being in the ED
because I felt like I should be more autonomous
versus just kind of sitting around waiting on orders
(03:00):
if that kind of makes sense.
But I think my main point for this one too is
if you haven't been to school yet,
that means you really don't have any medic experience.
So there's really no need for you to go to paramedic school
because the medic skills will help you.
Even if you finish school and you're paramedic,
(03:20):
those skills won't help you, but your EMT skills would.
And let me explain what I mean by this.
As an EMT, you have good hands-on patient care experience.
That is probably hands down the thing that would
make you better than anyone else
(03:42):
is your hands-on experience,
especially like dealing with things
like dealing with the family.
It takes nurses a little bit to gain skills
if you really don't have patient care
on how to deal with the family.
Well, when you're out there as a paramedic,
you and your partner, you can kind of,
when you go into a house, it's just you and your partner.
You may have law enforcement on scene to kind of help,
(04:05):
but sometimes it's hard.
You're trying to deal with someone's mom and the son
that's back there making like little,
smart, threatening comments.
And you just kind of like, what, do we lead the scene?
Do we call law enforcement?
How do we call law enforcement?
Or how do we deescalate the situation?
So you learn really good deescalation skills
coming from EMS.
(04:27):
Also, you familiar with the medications
because I remember working in services
when I was working as a truck 911 medic,
not only did I do medication inventory,
but my partner did medication inventory too.
So they was about as familiar as I was.
They knew if Cartesian was over 30 days old,
they already knew like, hey, well, you know,
we need to go in and let this go.
(04:48):
You know, and also you can do a patient assessment.
You're trained to spot improvement or decline
in a patient's condition.
And that's all you really need to be honest with you.
As far as basic nursing
and the way the health care system is concerned,
they view EMT and paramedic the same.
(05:08):
And it's sad to say, but most outside of EMS
don't know the difference between EMT or paramedic.
They look at you just the same.
As a paramedic, I've been called EMT
I don't know how many times.
Not saying that I don't like being called an EMT,
but my title is paramedic.
(05:29):
And what I mean by most people in healthcare,
I'm talking nurses, physicians, mid-levels,
which are PAs, unless they were EMS,
nurse practitioners, pharmacists, physical therapy,
occupational therapy, the whole shebang.
None of them know the difference
between an EMT and a paramedic.
So just because you're paramedic,
don't give your leg up if you're already EMT,
(05:52):
because we're kind of viewed the same.
Now, if you are an EMT,
there's really no need for your medic
unless you want to work in critical care flight.
And then too, that really depends
on your state officer EMS and your flight service.
And he was lying to me about it.
(06:13):
In my state, if you want it to be a flight nurse,
they require you to have a pre-hospital cert.
So it can be EMT or paramedic.
That's usually for things like seeing calls,
because you want a pre-hospital cert to do a scene call.
So most services here where I am,
most hospital systems tend to fly medic RN,
because the traditional sense is
(06:34):
your medic will take the scene call,
whereas your RN is more ICU based,
and they can do the in-facility transport.
But all in all, the medics and nurses do the same job,
if you kind of understand what I'm saying.
And also, but for services that fly RN to RN,
(06:55):
then they tend to require dual credentials.
And those are for nurses.
And for those nurses, there are RN to paramedic bridges.
Some medics, I ain't gonna lie to you,
I used to hear a lot of medics get really upset
with the RNs that would go and get their paramedic
via bridge instead of just going through
(07:16):
a con ed paramedic course,
because they felt that they didn't get
the really true experience it took to be a paramedic.
Because most of these RN to medic bridges
are just like maybe eight weeks.
It's online didactics,
and you may do a couple of weeks clinicals.
And that's kind of scary to kind of think of,
hey, you got a medic that may say,
(07:37):
hey, I wanna work a little bit in 911,
and they only got eight weeks of, you know,
medic training and online
and a couple of weeks of truck clinicals.
Kind of looking at them in a different light.
Me, I'm not partial.
I see the pros and cons to both.
I don't wanna dig too far into that,
because that's really subjective.
But it's just the point that there are some bridges
(07:59):
out there if you are RN,
and you want to come back and get your medic.
So here's my tips for you.
And I think in closing,
one of the things I will tell you is that if you are EMT,
and you're considering nursing,
don't worry about paramedic right now.
What I would do is I would just focus
on my nursing prereqs,
(08:21):
focus on your entry exam,
and go through a two year ADN program.
And if you want to do your medic later,
do the RN to medic bridge,
because that'll probably be your best bet time wise.
Don't make no sense to go through
a year long paramedic,
kind of program to become a medic,
then go get your ADN.
(08:42):
That don't make no sense.
Now, if you do go that route,
I'm just gonna let you know,
medics won't like you,
but they don't pay your bills either.
So, as I thank you for your time,
as always keep those comments coming.
For example, some of you got really great questions
and your questions can give me really good content
that I can dig and give you guys.
(09:04):
Keep those comments coming,
subscribe, pass the word.
And as always guys, happy nursing.
I just wanted to take a moment to let you know
how much I really enjoyed your support.
If you've been listening to me for a while,
I'd like to hear from you.
So just leave a comment from time to time,
hit the like button and just let me know
that you really enjoyed this episode.
Make sure that you share the episode with others
(09:24):
and of course subscribe and follow me.
My goal is to help as many people as possible
make the transition from paramedic to RN.
So thanks as always.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.