Paramedicine - Profession

Profession

Paramedicine is a health profession focused on assisting individuals, families, and communities in attaining, re-attaining, and maintaining optimal health, often following acute or sudden onset of medical or traumatic events. Paramedicine is practiced predominantly in the out of hospital setting. The practice of paramedicine is based on the sciences of human anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology. The goal of paramedicine is to promote optimal quality of life, as defined by persons and families, throughout their life experiences, from birth to care at the end of life.

Much of the practice of paramedicine includes complex independent decision making, often in the face of incomplete, ambiguous and conflicting information. Examples of such decision making include response readiness, scene management, patient assessment, clinical problem solving, emergency vehicle operations, leadership, planning, therapeutic communications, disposition decisions, patient education and resource coordination. The practice of paramedicine involves the application of concepts of medical care under challenging, uncontrolled, and austere conditions.

In addition to the independent portion of practice, paramedicine involves the performance of medical skills and tasks which are regulated by law. For such regulated tasks (i.e. starting an IV, administering a medication, performing invasive tasks, etc.), the practice of paramedicine is ‘dependent.’ The dependent portion of the practice of paramedicine is based on a collaborative relationship with a physician medical director who provides medical oversight. The contemporary philosophy of medical oversight involves the physician providing treatment protocols in such a fashion as to encourage clinical problem solving and decision making. The decision regarding which protocol to implement is based on the formation of a paramedic diagnosis.