Made up Medical Qualifications

M

M4MED

Longterm Registered User
Ladies and gents,

Having advertised for trainers recently, I have been inundated with excellent CVs who meet or far exceed the criteria. In this case, please accept my apologies, I will respond individually when I get time.

However, I was frustrated to receive dozens of CVs from people who obviously had not read the requirements but decided to send their CV with no cover letter anyway.

I was concerned by some of the titles and qualifications quoted in these CVs, which to my mind don´t exist, such as:

Senior team medic
Advanced trauma medic
Tactical Care Paramedic
Tactical Trauma Medic
Advanced close protection medic
Hostile environment trauma medic
Intermediate CP and Ships medic
advanced remote medicine practitioner
CP team medic

I am aware some training providers call their ´courses´ by different names for marketing purposes and to reflect their unique content and that certain courses are ´RCS´ approved, however, a lot of ´individuals´ are making courses and titles up.

At HR level, they are unheard of and not helpful at all. It either creates doubt or extra work to follow up on the due diligence process.

Recognised ´qualifications´ we are looking for in the industry might include:

Paramedic (AREMT, NREMT, HPC, HPCSA etc)
Registered Nurse
Critical care paramedic (CCEMT-P)
Emergency Medical Technician (US DoT; AREMT, NREMT) (EMT-B, EMT-I, EMT-P)
IHCD Ambulance Technician
HSE Offshore Medic
ASHI Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician
IHCD First Person on Scene (Basic and Intermeidate)
HSE FAW


The post is merely to highlight to some individuals that you will not get employed by reputable firms by inflating or creating course and qualification titles. If you can´t get employment based on your real qualifications, perhaps it´s time to progress and attend another recognised course and gain an industry recognised qualification from a reputable training provider (and there are several on here alone)

Best regards,

M4MED
 
Well said buddy. What people need to realise is when submitting a CV to employers, there is generally a lengthy process prior to it getting to people in the know. They get filtered down at the HR stage and if the job description states FPOS-I and you put down Tactical Trauma Medic or similar, whilst you may have done an FPOS-I re-branded by the TP (Like M4MED states above) your application will go no further. The long and the short of it is that your doing yourself out of a potential job!

M4MED - Great post. If any time wasters are identifiable as members on here, please let the Admin/SMODs/MODs know for suitable lashings.
 
The problem seems to stem from courses (for example FPOS) being dressed up as something else, as you say this is a marketing tool but are some TPs misleading their customers as course name being one thing and resulting qualification being another?
 
That could be the case although I know many of the TPs on here personally and whilst they call their ´courses´ by different names they are very clear about what qualifications are awarded.

Equally, I am aware of most course ´names´ out there and some of the alleged qualifications people purport to have do not relate to what is available in the market place.

There could be an element of that Customloads, perhaps by smaller TPs trying to compete and big things up but I don´t think the big/reputable players do it, I believe it is a personal integrity issue more than anything.
 
Customloads said:
The problem seems to stem from courses (for example FPOS) being dressed up as something else, as you say this is a marketing tool but are some TPs misleading their customers as course name being one thing and resulting qualification being another?
Click to expand...

Been saying similar for a while Customloads... when is an FPOSi not an FPOSI... as soon as you step away from the edexcel syllabus?
 
M4MED said:
I believe it is a personal integrity issue more than anything.
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You right of course. It is up the individual to describe there qualification clearly and if they want to elaborate on the actual courses that yielded those then they should so just as clearly, but we all know that not everyone sees their CV as an opportunity to be honest. :)
 
Understand and wholly agree with the comments. Could it also be people also mistaking employment contract titles given by employers as qualification title? For example my employment contract has the title Remote Site Paramedic although in general I would class myself as plain old Paramedic.
 
Well, I'm a Paramedic, OSM and a few other bits, but I describe myself as an advanced super dooper critical, urgent, emergency nursing, madwife, paramedic with xray vision and special ESP medical night vision training.

However, I may have to do a bit more training, because compared to others, I am a mere novice.........
 
PhilD,

Could be mate, I understand that and can see where the confusion could creep in but they were under ´qualifications´ and not employment history.

Makes me laugh that there are so many ´trauma´ medics out there yet the majority of our work (in any environment) is medical and primary care (Perhaps not in Baghdad 2005 - 2007 etc)

M4MED
 
Great post! As a paramedic who has worked in the field and been with a PSD team, it is critical to know exactly what expiernece and level of training the personnel on the team have accomplished. However, it is equally important to check to ensure that these people have the training they claim.

I worked for a security company as one of two medics on the team. Our team was very active and we did sustain casuallties. As I worked with the other medic, I found that he was not a licensed paramedic, but called himself a medic. He simply did not have the basic assessment skills and pracitcal skills to be effective in the field. Furthermore, he was not interested in learning the skills as he was afraid the employer would fire him for not actually being a paramedic.

In the end, I realized that with as much activity as we were seeing that my odss of becoming a casualty without the help of an experienced medic were very high and I quit the job and he remained as the team medic until the team suffered more casualties and a death (I do not know if lack of medical training made a difference in the death).

If you are going to trust the lives of your men in combat in the hands of a medic, make certain you check that he actually has a license and some personal references from employers.

Rene Steinhauer, RN, EMT-P, CFRN
 
Well said medicrene!

Along with appropriate training, qualifications and licensing goes appropriate hands on experience. Real world patient contact.

You can´t hope to treat someone if you have never assessed a patient and don´t know what normal and abnormal breathing, pulses and pressures are like or how to respond to them.

Our courses include hands on clinical attachments at an ER, primary care clinic or as part of an ambulance crew to develop that all important competence and confidence.

You could get an online degree (piece of paper) in numerous subjects without having any real world experience. You could get an online degree in psychology without ever speaking to a person. Would you want this person to council you?

Likewise, would you employ someone as a ´medic´ without them ever having seen a real patient? Unconscious incompetence springs to mind!

Anyway, slightly off topic.
 
good post and replys by all

just a quick one First Aid at work quall
now is that

FAW
FAAW
or
FAaW

i only ask as i have seen it written all ways now you lot will know so which one is it for the CV

many thanks cheers ed
 
Wrong on every count bruv.

It's written, 'Hostile Environment Attack Trauma Para Remote Immediate Casualty and Bayonet Fighting Ninja' or HEAT PRIC BFN for short.

Thought everyone knew that.....Jeeeeeeez..............

In answer to your question FAW seems to work well, but any of the variants is acceptable.

Keep safe......
 
Starlight said:
Wrong on every count bruv.

It's written, 'Hostile Environment Attack Trauma Para Remote Immediate Casualty and Bayonet Fighting Ninja' or HEAT PRIC BFN for short.

Thought everyone knew that.....Jeeeeeeez..............

In answer to your question FAW seems to work well, but any of the variants is acceptable.

Keep safe......
Click to expand...

I want one... which 1 hour course can I attend Starlight to aspire to such an impressive qualification... and do I need to be a Bruv, Bro or Sis for APL? Carl
 
Starlight said:
Wrong on every count bruv.

It's written, 'Hostile Environment Attack Trauma Para Remote Immediate Casualty and Bayonet Fighting Ninja' or HEAT PRIC BFN for short.

Thought everyone knew that.....Jeeeeeeez..............

In answer to your question FAW seems to work well, but any of the variants is acceptable.

Keep safe......
Click to expand...


cheers starlight many thanks

ed
 
Good post. I've done plenty of military medic courses (Combat medic, FAI, Team Medic) and now hold EMT are doing an in house G4S Ambulance EMT course (FPOS with extras like cardiac treatment and paediatric training) as I work in ambulances on the side. Why anyone would exaggerate thier medical skills when getting it wrong on a patient is unthinkable is beyond me!
 
Medicrene, what you just said is worrying and a cracking example of why chose not to become a PMC, I'm here to gain knowledge as I've already said to M4MED I'm a Fireman looking to enhnce my skills and we do have the same faulse sense of belief from the public mainly but also some of our own guys.
You see my service provides a FAAW Course with a few job specific extras KED, MIBBS, COLLARS, LONG BOARDS, AED'S, o2 THERAPY, BVM, OP AIRWAYS, ASPIRATORS AND EXTRICATION TECHNIQUES... Then they send us out into the wild after a 5 day course under our belts and feeling bigged up, with our huge trauma packs on the truck ready to go we look the part and the casualty feels that finally the paramedic has arrived. Its usually at this point I tell them " Hi my name is Steve and although I look like I got all the bells and whistles, I'll be your Fist Aider today until your Ambulance arrives but between us we'll get through it OK".
So far to date I've only had to be called in as a "casualty carer" 3 times, and have now got the quietly spoken title as the station medic because I must show confidence on the ground and because I keep pestering management for more Medical training as I feel I need it before it cost someone their life, I'll only ever have the same trauma pack but I feel knowledge could be key I sustaining that life long enough for a real medic to arrive.
You see your sector is not alone and not everyone wants to be a paramedic so I agree a standard should be set but with a tier system of qualifications set into stone for all to follow.
Jonah
 
You see my service provides a FAAW Course with a few job specific extras and have now got the quietly spoken title as the station medic because I must show confidence on the ground.
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Great post and I like your style, but the slightly misquoted section above I hope will serve to show just how easy it is for certain people feeling the need to big up their CV to slip in the wrong term.

Just to re-emphasise: I have misquoted Jonah.
 
The problem with all of these courses is that the people that they need to impress, namely employers, are very unlikely to be HCPs and are therefore easily impressed.
Companies would prefer not to employ real HCPs because we know too much..............
I actually identified this particular mindset during my last rotation, and indeed during other rotations with other companies. It occured to me that the head sheds regarded the medics in much the same way that say, the CSM might regard the Coy Medic, and I'm sure there are many of us who have suffered that particular bun fight in the past.
While this attitude continues, we professionals are almost doomed to fail.
We are just an inconvenient tick in the box, and if employers can get away with calling someone with nothing more than their FPOS, a medic, then they will. It's cheep and quickly acheived, and in the commercial world, that's all that really matters.
 
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