Emergency medical technicians (or EMTs, as they are often known) are trained and licensed professionals who are often the first people who arrive on the scene of accidents and other medical emergencies. They provide first aid and stabilize the patient so that they can be transferred to the closest hospital for treatment – and given the nature of their work, the difference between life and death can be the quality and type of training that these first responders have received.
There are a lot of different EMT training courses available, including accelerated EMT training for prospective emergency medical technicians who are interested in entering the emergency medical services field as quickly as possible. There are also more than one kind of accelerated courses, varying by specialty and the degree of certification that they are designed to prepare students for.
So how accelerated is an accelerated program compared to a traditional EMT training program? There is no one answer to this question, as it happens – the requirements for these courses vary from state to state, since certification for emergency medical technicians is something which is regulated largely by individual states, so you will need to do some research on your own to find out how much time you will save by choosing an accelerated course over a traditional one. With that in mind, let’s take a quick overview of the types of accelerated EMT classes which you’ll find offered by most community colleges and vocational schools which offer emergency medical technician training.
The most common type of course you’ll see is EMT-basic training. This is a course which prepares students for entry level EMT work, with the coursework covering how to recognize symptoms and how to provide basic life saving first aid on the scene. Students will learn how to perform physical exams and take patient histories when possible, how to administer oxygen, airway maintenance, setting broken bones and stopping external bleeding, among other techniques. There are both theoretical and practical elements to these EMT courses and in general, an accelerated EMT-basic course will take around two months to complete (though again, this may vary from state to state).
For more advanced students, there are accelerated EMT training classes geared towards teaching intermediate level skills, including trauma case, inserting IV lines, advanced airway maintenance techniques and more. These courses prepare students to provide more sophisticated first aid as well as increasing their earning potential as an EMT. An accelerated course usually consists of one to two months of instruction and review.
Even though an accelerated EMT training course is designed to be completed quickly and prepare students for their state certification exams, this does not mean that they are easy – far from it, as a matter of fact. These are exceptionally demanding programs which require the full attention of students as well as a genuine commitment to the EMT profession. However, if you’re up for the challenge of an intense accelerated course in emergency medical technician skills, an accelerated training program could be the right choice for you.