The Medic Zone ~ South Africa's Paramedic | EMS portal

@ Jmedic. To answer your last question first, based on what I have heard no i would not trust a single ECT to treat any of my family or myself for that matter.

I think the big question we need to ask of those ECT's on this thread is exactly how much time was spent on road pracs?

I personally have worked with one ECT first year student who spent the day on my bus, however i was told (by my base manager) that under no circumstances is he allowed to touch a patient as he has absolutely no formal qualification or professional registration. So unfortunatley he spent all his time either carrying stuff or just watching us work (he did make a good drip stand though)

Another thing that concerns me, and although this is hearsay i believe there must be a amount of truth in it is that the department of education is granting bursarys for the larger percentage of ECT students. BUT, apparently they pay the training facility 20% of the course fees up front and only pay the remaining 80% once the student had PASSED. So the story apparently is that they are passing these guys so that they can ensure an income. Whether its totally true or not I cant say, but i did hear it from a fairly reliable source.

Yes hoping they improve over time is definitely not good enough, but, what choice do we have?