Trouble with EMS 2 - or Why you don't put Bureaucrats in charge of Education

As promised in my previous post, I will discuss the short-sightedness of the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS). For many years, it was the policy of the Department to allow EMTs whose cards had expired to recertify by taking a 48 hour refresher course and then successfully passing the EMT examination. There was NO time restriction on the length of expiration. In other words, it didn't make any difference whether your card had expired two months or twenty years.

For personal reasons, I let my card expire in June of 2000. In August of 2002, I asked my ambulance corps captain about getting the paperwork to enroll in a recertification course. She told me that, effective June 2002, the DHSS had passed new regulations requiring any EMT with a card expired more than 2 years to take the full 120 basic certification course and successfully pass the EMT examination.

Does anyone besides myself notice the similarity in the basic requirement to become an EMT? Am I the only one who notices that EVERY EMT has to successfully pass the EMT examination in order to become an EMT?

Apparently, that fact has escaped the DHSS. I have written letters to then Governor Cody and the Commissioner of the DHSS (on several occasions) and they do not seem to see the similarity. They sent me letters actually stating that this change was made to improve the quality of EMS and to make sure that former EMTs are "updated" appropriately because some of their knowledge and skills may be outdated or "rusty". All of that may be true but the EMT still has to successfully pass the EMT examination! If they don't, they have to re-take the basic EMT-B course until they successfully pass the EMT examination.

Given that the exam is the ultimate determiner of whether someone becomes an EMT, what difference does the course length make? Why am I sitting and studying how to use equipment that I've used for over 20 years (and have taught hundreds of others how to use) when my time would be better spent in a refresher course that focuses on what is new in EMS? Why is this disincentive thrown up by the DHSS when all the local newspapers are talking about the shortage of EMTs throughout New Jersey? What ADVANTAGE is there in this new policy if the bottom line is that the EMT successfully pass the EMT examination?

Please understand, I WANT to take a refresher course. I KNOW that there are new things happening in EMS all of the time. I AGREE that I need 48 hours and SHOULD be required to successfully pass the EMT examination, but I challenge any State official to post a reasonable rationale on why I (and the many expired EMTs that I know that refuse) have to take the entire semester-long basic course.

Thoughts anyone?