A recent article from Wired.com is reporting that could be the case. The Pentagon is currently looking into implementing an autonomous EMS crew, along with an unmanned ambulance and robodocs, to aid fallen troops with minimal intervention by medic or other first responder operators.

“In a war zone, evacuating patients under fire is one of the most dangerous jobs there is,” the article notes. “That’s why the Pentagon’s hoping to capitalize on recent innovations in robotics to finally create ‘bots that operate as ‘combat casualty extraction system(s).’”

Many benefits could result from such a system. First, replacing humans who deliver medical care to wounded soldiers would reduce the number of people at risk during rescue operations. Second, the Army is counting on new technology to deliver better care, such as free-ranging robots with human-like movement and legs that can jump 25 feet.

Although research of such a system has been going on for years, the Army wants to implement robots that are “more autonomous, tough as nails and small enough to fit into an unmanned vehicle.”

Those robots would be able to plan and execute transportation routes; facilitate communication between patients and off-site human medics; coordinate “robot teams”; lift, drag or otherwise remove a troop from harm’s way; and figure out how serious a soldier’s injuries are.

The Army reports the robots would be able to “perform remote/stand-off initial casualty assessment to identify injuries sufficient to prevent further injury during robotic casualty extraction,” and “provide closed loop or semi-autonomous casualty monitoring and en route care sufficient to mitigate risk associated with ‘abandonment’ concerns.”

If robot teams become as powerful as the Army hopes, they will be able to extract casualties from rugged terrain, marshes or ice, and even through “enemy fire or IEDs, contamination from weapons of mass destruction, or any of numerous natural hazards.”

The Army also is considering the possibility of robots working in conjunction with unmanned vehicles, which would effectively create an all-in-one robot rescue crew.

If any or all of these ideas come to fruition, the robot EMS system could potentially be using for other applications, including “civilian emergency services for recovering injured personnel in mine, construction site and nuclear power plant accidents; chemical spills; fire fighting, terrorist, hostage situations; and in police response to situations involving armed suspects.”

The U.S. Department of Labor recently announced that DeKalb Technical College will receive $2,043,859 during the next 36 months from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help train unemployed, dislocated and incumbent workers as EMTs and paramedics.

“DeKalb Tech is proud to be the recipient of this grant,” DTC President Dr. Robin Hoffman said. “We look forward to being responsible stewards of these funds by helping people who are unemployed, and transitioning them into working, productive members of our society in fields that offer growth potential.”

The grant will train 250 EMTs and 30 paramedics during the next three years, accounting for twice the current paramedic graduation rate at the school and four times the current EMT graduation rate. This is welcome news, as enrollment at DTC continues to increase, but state education funds continue to decrease.

“DeKalb Technical College is well-positioned to train first-responders to meet the demand in the coming years,” Hoffman added. “This Federal grant will provide funds for DeKalb Tech to expand its personnel and use hybrid technology to expand classes and reduce attrition rates.”

The funding is part of an effort under the ARRA to stimulate new growth in the healthcare industry and other high-growth emerging industries. The stimulus bill was signed by President Barack Obama last year in an effort to create jobs, promote economic growth and assist those most impacted by the recession.

“The Recovery Act funded grants … will ensure thousands of workers across the nation can receive high-quality training and employment services, which will lead to good jobs in healthcare and other industries offering career-track employment and good pay and benefits,” Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis said.

EMS Magazine recently released an extension of its 2008 “Sowing the SEEDS” study conducted by the Loyola University Medical Center. The original study surveyed a large number of EMT-Basic students to investigate their backgrounds and career expectations.

That study found 63 percent of EMT-Basic students planned to receive EMT-Paramedic licenses, but planned to use those licenses in order to work in the fire service, as opposed to an emergency medical services profession. Because of this unexpected result, as well as continuing recruitment and retention issues, EMS Magazine expanded its research to examine EMT-Paramedic students.

The new survey consisted of 25 questions and was submitted to EMT-Paramedic classes throughout the Midwest and other selected states, attendees at a national EMS conference and volunteers. A total of 23 programs participated, with 78 percent returning completed surveys.

Of the students surveyed, 54 percent were 24-years old or younger, 78 percent were 30 or younger, 79 percent were male, and 70 percent were single. About 52 percent of respondents had received their EMT-Basic certification within the last year, but 35 percent had no experience working as and EMT-Basic.

When asked how familiar they were with EMS, 5 percent of respondents said they were “somewhat or very unfamiliar,” while 95 percent had “average” or “greater than average” familiarity. This is an increase from the 22 percent of EMT-Basic students in the previous survey who said they were “somewhat unfamiliar or very unfamiliar” with EMS.

The survey found that nine out of every 10 EMT-Paramedic students had some higher education, which is in line with the original results. In addition, 42 percent of respondents said they had family members in the EMS field.

When asked why they had signed up for paramedic classes, 92 percent of students said they had voluntarily enrolled, while 8 percent said they were required by their employers. About 88 percent of students said they plan to work while in paramedic school.

Of the students surveyed, 68 percent plan to obtain a critical care paramedic license after receiving their EMT-Paramedic license, although the critical care license is not recognized by many states or the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians.

As for employment, 38 percent of students plan to work with fire departments where they are currently employed, 44 percent plan to wait until their programs are done to look for work, and 11 percent are currently looking for work.

Although 82 percent of students expressed the desire to work in fire service, research shows that 40 percent of EMT-Basics and EMT-Paramedics are employed in the private ambulance industry, while 30 percent are employed by local governments and 20 percent work with hospitals.

Almost all of the students plan to pursue full-time employment and receive benefits, while almost no students wanted to volunteer without pay. Although a 2008 survey found the average wage for a full-time paramedic to be $37,699.78 per year, and most students would accept an offer under $45,000 per year, their expectations are much higher.

About 2 percent of students expect to earn between $15,001 and $25,000; 9 percent want between $25,001 and $35,000; 25 percent expect between $35,001 and $45,000; 35 percent want between $45,001 and $55,000; 16 percent expect between $55,001 and $65,000; and 12 percent hope to make more than $65,000.

The Hazard Assessment and Response Management course at the Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston, Ala., is offering hands-on training that provides mental and physical challenges to emergency responders.

The HARM course provides emergency responders with a realistic operational WMD environment where students operate within the incident command system and decide procedures, equipment and their tactical approach to an emergency event.

The training course requires students to demonstrate solid response skills while providing parameters and developing plans for a hazardous materials or weapons of mass destruction response. According to an article by EMS Responder, the course provides response personnel with a scenario, but it’s up to the students to determine the tempo and plan their response.

“All CDP courses have instructors directly involved with training,” Rick Dickson, assistant director of training delivery, said. “In HARM our instructors step back and let the students make the decisions. Sometimes the students meet with difficulty; other times they succeed immediately. Ultimately, the information and learning tools they gain are invaluable. This course is about as real as it gets for WMD or hazardous materials training.”

Before taking the course, students must first have taken Incident Command System 100 and 200, and successfully completed the WMD Technical Emergency Response Training, WMD HazMat Technician or WMD Hands-On-Training within the past 36 months.

The course, which lasts three days, consists of up to 45 responders from multiple disciplines and jurisdictions with different levels of training and experience. The students are responsible for appointing their incident commander and determining response elements based on the number of students and response background of each person.

Each day of the course includes:

• Day one – The teams choose their equipment, determine their level of competency and conduct individual and collective refresher training in preparation for their mission.
• Day two – The response element must conduct life safety actions, determine the toxicity within the complex, mitigate the threat, and identify and contain any toxic spills.
• Day three – The teams mitigate and contain CBRNE material consisting of nerve agents. The HARM course incorporates the CDP’s toxic agent facility that allows for hands-on training using actual nerve agents.

That’s a hard question to answer, and one that isn’t highly studied or documented. That’s not for lack of the popularity of the job, as many people work as EMTs and the sector is expected to continue growing. It’s more likely that the majority of EMTs don’t take the job for the money, but instead for the challenging and rewarding aspects of the occupation.

As far as the average salary for an EMT in the 10 largest cities, there’s not much difference between the best-paying and the worst-paying. For instance, San Jose, Calif., has the highest average salary, at $31,502 per year, but that’s not much higher than last-ranked San Antonio, Texas, which has an average annual salary of $25,595.

When contemplating where you should look for EMT jobs, there are other factors to consider in addition to the salary you would earn. For instance, you should know the population of the city, because a bigger population means the competition for finding any job will be tough. It’s also helpful to know the cost of living for the city, as that can greatly impact exactly how far your salary will go.

Here is a list of the 10 largest cities and how they stack up as far as salary and cost of living:

1. New York – Even though the Big Apple pays out the second-highest EMT salary, at $30,832 per year, it is perhaps the worst city in which to find an EMT job. Not only does NYC have the biggest population, at 8,363,710 people, it also has the highest cost of living.
2. Los Angeles – The second-largest city, with 3,833,995 people, pays EMTs the fifth-lowest salary, at $27,721 per year. Unfortunately, it is only 14 percent cheaper to live in L.A. than New York.
3. Chicago – The third-largest city, with 2,853,114 people, also has the third-highest EMT salary, at $29,827 per year, and is 34-percent less expensive than New York.
4. Houston – In addition to having the second-lowest EMT salary, at $26,324 per year, Houston has the fourth-largest population, with 2,242,193 people. However, it costs 47 percent less to live here than it does to live in New York City.
5. Phoenix – This city has the fifth-largest population, at 1,567,924, and the third-lowest salary, at $26,864 per year. However, it’s 41 percent cheaper to live in Phoenix than New York.
6. Philadelphia – This city has the fifth-smallest population, with 1,540,351 people, and the fourth-highest EMT salary, at $29,406 per year. In addition, it’s 28 percent cheaper to live here than in New York.
7. San Antonio – Despite having the lowest EMT salary, San Antonio has the fourth-smallest population, at 1,351,305 people, and it costs 44 percent less to live here than it does to live in New York.
8. Dallas – Although this city has the fourth-lowest EMT salary, with $27,554, it has the third-smallest population, at 1,279,910 people, and is 46-percent less expensive than New York.
9. San Diego – EMTs here make $28,853 per year, the fifth-highest salary, and live in the second-least populated city, with 1,279,329 people. Another plus – it’s 21 percent less expensive to live here than New York City.
10. San Jose – Aside from having the highest salary, this city also has the smallest population, at 948,279 people. However, the cost of living here is only 8 percent lower than New York City.

Now you can choose where the best place for EMT jobs is, based on what’s important to you, whether it be population and your chances of getting a job, how much you’ll get paid or how much it will cost to live there.

The population statistics are based on data from the 2000 U.S. Census, while average salaries and cost of living are based on data from PayScale.

A new program in Ottawa, Canada, is training a group of paramedics how to use their skills to treat injured police dogs. Not only are police dogs extremely useful, they also are estimated to account for an investment of more than $100,000, so officials in the city are doing their part to protect that investment.

“There’s a lot of similarities, except they’re down on all fours and we’re standing up,” Tyler Dearden, a veterinarian at the Alta Vista Animal Hospital who volunteered to teach the program, told CBC News.

The Ottawa Police Service currently has about 15 dogs in its canine unit. Those dogs go through at least four months of training to learn how to sniff out missing people, bombs and narcotics.

In an effort to be able to save those dogs in case of injury, members of Ottawa’s Paramedic Tactical Unit are currently taking the two-week veterinary training program. The program, which teaches paramedics how to treat police dogs injured on the job, is useful to paramedics, who are often the first people on the scene.

“We’re already there to do medical attention, and when I’ve been through some training, I realized how much dogs are really similar to humans,” Valerie Jacques, an Ottawa paramedic taking the course, said in the article. “If unfortunately something has to happen, we’ll be ready.”

Police officers who work with canine units consider police dogs particularly useful when it comes to tracking down missing people because their strong sense of smell allows them to cover large areas quickly. The City of Ottawa hopes to eventually train all members of the Paramedic Tactical Unit in the course.

An industrial inquiry commission working under the Province of British Columbia recently submitted a report to CUPE Local 873, the union representing the Emergency and Health Services Commission, as well as its paramedics and dispatchers.

Commissioner Chris Trumpy, acting as a one-person commission under the B.C. Labour Relations Code, completed the report, which is non-binding and only meant to provide options for further consideration by government to help improve service delivery and the structure of collective bargaining.

“Mr. Trumpy has submitted a thoughtful and comprehensive report that will help inform the broader discussion about redesigning the B.C. Ambulance Service and the bargaining relationship between paramedics and their employer,” Murray Coell, minister of labour, said. “I have forwarded the report to my colleague, Minister of Health Services Kevin Falcon, who will be reviewing it.”

The report found the British Columbia Ambulance Service currently employs 1,485 full-time staff members, with a median age of 46, and 2,129 part-time staff members, with a median age of 39. Overall attrition remains relatively low, while staffing rural and remote stations remains a growing challenge.

Other highlights of the report include:

• An examination of the collective bargaining structure in the ambulance service, including: the delivery of ambulance services by way of an independent commission under the Emergency and Health Services Act; the transfer of ambulance services to the health sector as either an independent commission or integrated into an existing service delivery structure in accordance with the Health Authorities Act; and service redesign to facilitate greater alignment with municipal fire services.
• Examination of a number of items specifically requested by CUPE Local 873, including: staff recruitment; training and retention; staff workload and occupational health and safety issues; and deployment strategies in comparison with other Canadian ambulance service delivery models.
• A comparison of paramedic and dispatcher compensation across Canadian jurisdictions based on: wages; premiums for hours worked and hours on-call in rural and remote areas; and benefits, including health benefits, welfare benefits and pension plan.

Check out this recruiting video from CUPE:

EMT jobs

The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics states that the healthcare and social assistance sector will be the fastest-growing job sector during the near future. The sector is expected to grow by 24 percent, adding 4 million new jobs, by 2018.

The healthcare industry remains one of the most stable career fields, even amidst the economic recession. However, you don’t have to be a doctor or nurse to be a part of the healthcare industry, as there are plenty of other jobs available within the field.

One big advantage is that many of these other careers only require one to two years of training, most of which is affordable and available at local community colleges. One-year programs typically last two semesters and lead to a certificate, while two-year programs usually result in an associate’s degree.

In order to enroll in a program, you generally need a high school diploma or GED, to pass a criminal background check and to pass a physical, including a drug test. Both types of programs usually require that half of your time be devoted to classroom work and the other half be devoted to clinical experience.

“When they’re ready, students participate in externships at local hospitals to gain the skills and confidence needed to work with patients,” Sharvette Philmon, assistant dean of Allied Health and Nursing at Delaware County Community College, told Metro.

Graduates of one-year programs who receive certificates are often required to obtain additional state licensing. Popular jobs resulting from one-year programs include: medical assistant, surgical technician and addiction counselor, as well as office jobs, such as health unit coordinator or coding and billing specialist.

Most two-year programs also require that you take non-medical courses and obtain state licensing. The most popular jobs resulting from two-year programs include: emergency medical technician or paramedic, radiology technician, dental hygienist and respiratory therapist.

Helping Heroes – a joint effort among Pennsylvania-based CentreLearn Solutions and Wisconsin-based EMSResponder.com and Emergency Preparedness Systems – will offer free continuing education to certified first responders, emergency medical technicians and paramedics.

“Across the nation, many EMS personnel are feeling the effects of the recession firsthand, in some cases even losing their jobs,” CentreLearn CEO James Eastham said.

The companies have set up a Web site where EMS workers can learn about and enroll in the Helping Heroes program. EMS workers who qualify will receive a free subscription to the Web site, which offers unlimited access to more than 200 continuing education lessons accredited by the Continuing Education Coordinating Board for Emergency Medical Services.

“Maintaining EMS certification has real costs,” EPS President Greg Friese said. “I am honored to have this opportunity to help lighten the financial burden of EMS professionals who are out of work.”

Participants will receive continuing education certificates after they view a lesson and successfully complete a post-test. Workers looking to enroll in the program must provide documentation of their circumstances and proof of their EMS certification or license.

“It’s very important that everyone in the EMS industry find ways to help those who give so much to our communities,” Scott Cravens, publisher of EMS Magazine and EMSResponder.com, said.

U.S. News & World Report recently named emergency management specialists to its list of the 50 best careers for this year. Emergency management specialists are the people who work behind the scenes to make it possible for firefighters and police to respond to a situation.

They can be responsible for developing disaster response plans, training other people in an organization in disaster and emergency preparedness, and coordinating with various emergency personnel to ensure that emergency contingencies are covered.

Many emergency management specialists work in the public sector with the military, law enforcement and state and local governments. However, employers also can include private-sector and nonprofit companies in sensitive lines of work, such as hospitals, colleges and universities, and community relief organizations.

Most of the time, emergency management specialists work in an office and spend the majority of their time communicating with various people. While the job is not very stressful on a day-to-day basis, it can be one of the most stressful if an emergency or disaster occurs.

Almost all employers require applicants to have a bachelor’s degree, and many, especially in the public sector, require candidates to be certified in the National Incident Management System, a disaster response system designed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The occupation has a positive outlook, with the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics predicting employment to increase by 2,800 jobs, or 22 percent, from 2008 to 2018.

Currently, the bottom 10 percent of emergency management specialists earn less than $25,000 per year, while the top 10 percent earn more than $80,000 per year. The median annual salary during 2008 was $50,460, with California, Massachusetts and Rhode Island paying the highest salaries.