Experiences as an EMT

To the Editor:

I am writing to support pre-hospital emergency medical services as an easily accessible and exceedingly pertinent pre-medical activity. Now a graduating college senior, I have worked in EMS for the past five years. I became an emergency medical technician as a high school junior in order to obtain early clinical contact that would affirm my interest in a medical career. EMS has done this and more.

First and foremost, training to become an EMT constitutes bona fide medical education, both practical and theoretical. As a healthcare provider in the EMS setting, and EMT must synthesize and adapt this training in order to treat patients en route to the hospital. In addition to providing a community service and/or employment opportunity, EMS embraces a pre-med's medical interest and forces her to function autonomously in an important healthcare setting.

In addition to treating patients years before non-EMT peers, a pre-med EMT also gains a bottom-up perspective on the healthcare system. Interacting with emergency department staff and physicians when transferring care empowers this pre-medical undergraduate to consider herself a valuable and professional member of a healthcare team.

After training as a basic EMT, I pursued additional training, which included Advanced Cardiac Life Support, medication administration, and airway management. These are skills that I will utilize in medical school when I undergo further training. Since EMS has served as an introduction to clinical medicine, I view medical school as an extension of my current training rather than an entirely new endeavor. I hope that more pre-meds will explore participation in EMS on their college campus or home municipality. I advocate EMS training as a pre-medical opportunity for college students seeking a genuine clinical experience with the chance to actually develop a bedside manner and practice the practice of medicine.

by Benjamin Galen, a student at Brown University, Class of 2005