Paramedics

patient administer intravenous medication treatment equipment emergency medical care life support medical history drugs

Critical Care Paramedic, Firefighter Paramedic, First Responder, Flight Paramedic

What they do:
Administer basic or advanced emergency medical care and assess injuries and illnesses. May administer medication intravenously, use equipment such as EKGs, or administer advanced life support to sick or injured individuals.
On the job, you would:
  • Perform emergency cardiac care, such as cardioversion and manual defibrillation.
  • Perform emergency invasive intervention before delivering patient to an acute care facility.
  • Coordinate work with other emergency medical team members or police or fire department personnel.

Knowledge

Health

  • medicine and dentistry

Arts and Humanities

  • English language

Safety and Government

  • public safety and security
  • law and government

Business

  • customer service

Skills

Basic Skills

  • thinking about the pros and cons of different ways to solve a problem
  • listening to others, not interrupting, and asking good questions

Social

  • looking for ways to help people
  • changing what is done based on other people's actions

Problem Solving

  • noticing a problem and figuring out the best way to solve it

Abilities

Verbal

  • listen and understand what people say
  • communicate by speaking

Ideas and Logic

  • notice when problems happen
  • make general rules or come up with answers from lots of detailed information

Hand and Finger Use

  • keep your arm or hand steady
  • hold or move items with your hands

Attention

  • do two or more things at the same time

Personality

People interested in this work like activities that include helping people, teaching, and talking.

They do well at jobs that need:

  • Self-Confidence
  • Adaptability
  • Perseverance
  • Empathy
  • Stress Tolerance
  • Self-Control

Technology

You might use software like this on the job:

Medical software

  • eClinicalWorks EHR software Hot Technology
  • MEDITECH software Hot Technology

Presentation software

  • Microsoft PowerPoint Hot Technology

Information retrieval or search software

  • Epocrates
  • TechOnSoftware HazMatCE Pro

Education

Education: (rated 2 of 4)
certificate after high school or
associate's degree or other 2-year degree
usually needed

Get started on your career:

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Job Outlook

Bright
New job opportunities are very likely in the future.
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