Friday, 16 August 2013

The Evolution Of The 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.

The paramedic throughout history goes hand in hand with an ambulance service. This could be defined as the transportation of the sick by any means, in order to get them to better medical care. These services have been recorded as dating back as early as the bubonic plague in sixteenth century London. After the plague subsided, these services became a little more permanent, and began to transport patients who needed all varieties of medical care.

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.

Throughout the following decades, the job of an emergency health care professional became more and more directed towards delivering patient care before they got to hospital. The description changed from 'ambulance service' to 'emergency medical services'. The powers of the paramedics tended to vary from area to area, and the levels of education they received differed. This is when the standardization of emergency medical care began to evolve, meaning paramedics were able to provide quality care wherever they were.

Today, the job of an advanced practice paramedic is both to deliver the patient to hospital safely and quickly, whilst also providing medical care which could potentially save their life. It is a job which saves many lives and is respected all over the world.




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