Types of EMT's

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) identifies five nationally-defined levels of emergency security personnel, three of which fall under the EMT category: EMT-Basic, EMT-Intermediate/85, and EMT-Intermediate/99. Countless other definitions of EMT training levels, however, exist at the state level as defined by their respective authorities.

EMT-Basics, as their title suggests, “are practitioners who provide basic emergency medical care and transportation for critical and emergent patients who access the emergency medical system” (“EMS Workforce” 20). The duties of EMT-Basics include assessing the nature of patients’ injuries and the treatment that is needed to tend to these injuries, as well as carrying out basic medical procedures. Procedures EMT-Basics are trained and licensed to perform include the application of first aid and providing life support such as performing CPR - cardiopulmonary resuscitation - or administering oxygen.

The Intermediate EMT levels, EMT-Intermediate/85 and EMT-Intermediate/99, refer to their respective 1985 and 1999 intermediate emergency medical technician curriculums. They are distinguished from the EMT-Basic level as well as from each other by the amount of additional training required to earn the titles. They are also set apart by the procedures and techniques that they are authorized to perform while on the job. Additional tasks that EMT-Intermediates are authorized to do include inserting IVs (intravenous tubes through which medicine is administered directly to a patient’s system), administering some medications, and taking blood samples from patients for analysis when necessary. With sufficient advanced training, generally in excess of one thousand hours, EMTs may advance to being paramedics, or EMT-Paramedics, who are authorized to administer the most advanced level of emergency medical care and life support to patients before and during transport to a medical institution. Paramedics, as the etymology of their name suggests, are essentially mobile doctors with respect to the tasks which they perform.

Lastly, EMTs are trained and responsible for driving and actively maintaining ambulances (or any other emergency medical service vehicles they may be required to use as part of their job) as well as effectively using the various equipment available onboard their vehicles.

As with any field of work, the income that emergency medical service personnel such as EMTs earn strongly depends on experience, though it also tends to vary from area to area. The base yearly salary for fresh EMTs is around twenty-five thousand dollars, going as low as twenty thousand in some areas and over thirty thousand in other areas. This tends to increase by about two thousand dollars with each additional year of employment experience and/or training, and an EMT may earn well in excess of forty thousand dollars after several years on the job. EMT-Paramedics make substantially more, with a starting salary at forty thousand dollars or more, and going well over fifty or sixty thousand with additional years of employment experience.