The Job And History Of An Advanced Practice Paramedic

By Bernice Terry


The modern advanced practice paramedic you may encounter will have undergone many years of training to provide a quality service which can save the lives of people across the world. They are a professional which can deliver fast, life saving treatment to those who need it, but where exactly did they come from?

Military conflict saw the birth of the first paramedics. There have been accounts found of the battles of Roman battalions, which seem to show the existence of this job in the earliest centuries. Many of the older soldiers who were no longer fit to battle were often given the task of picking up the wounded soldiers from the center of the battlefield. These professionals were often trained in basic procedures.

An ambulance is often seen as any method of transportation for the sick of injured to an area where they are able to receive medical treatment for their ailment. The idea of an ambulance service has often been said to date back to the times of the bubonic plague in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. When the black death subsided, the public still called for the use of the ambulance service for other illnesses.

Motorized ambulances started to be developed during World War One, where paramedics would be trained to drive vans to a nearby doctor or hospital and treat the patients they carried. The effectiveness of this service spread, and they were soon used in civilian life too. Many reports were carried out claiming that the service would benefit the greater public, as findings showed that survival rates on the battlefield were sometimes higher than those on the road in accidents in towns and cities.

In the early days of the paramedic, especially during wars, paramedics were not regulated in any manner. These people were given freedom with many powerful drugs, such as opium and morphine. These powerful narcotics can cause serious issues if not used correctly, however many staff of warships were allowed to use as much as they wanted on the patients, as there were not enough doctors to watch them.

The modern paramedic began to emerge about two decades after the war. Some studies in Ireland showed that the use of an ambulance to treat patients with a suspected heart attack or heart problems before they reached hospital increased survival rates, and so the idea of health care before a patient reached hospital was born. Because of this, paramedics began to be trained in emergency medical care.

An emergency health care professional has evolved more and more in the last few decades, as they now are trained to deliver fast, effective emergency medical care as soon as a patient in distress is reached. This gives the patient a higher chance of survival as they are treated before they reach hospital. In the beginning, different areas had different rules as to what the paramedics were allowed to do, and so a standardized training began to emerge.

The career of an advanced practice paramedic is one which many people have taken up in order to enjoy a diverse, exciting career which offers many opportunities. Today, the service is one which is respected and applauded by many for its lifesaving work.




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