TWO INSTITUTIONS ISSUED AN ANALYSIS OF THE EDUCATION OF A PROFESSION. They were negative and shared four criticisms:
- Weak students
- Inappropriately trained faculty members
- Unintellectual curriculum
- Poor research
Is this a more formal response to the EMS 2.0 initiative or a follow-up to a report written three years ago by the National EMS Management Curriculum Committee?
National EMS Management Curriculum Committee is a Federal Advisory Committee Act compliant group that issued a report to the National Fire Academy Board of Visitors on a proposed national undergraduate EMS Management curricula.
Part of the Fire and Emergency Services Higher Education (FESHE) process. You can access the 31 page 178 KB document HERE.
By the way, I am the chair of the committee … Draft 2.2 is as far as the report got within the bureaucracy.
STATE OF EMS MANAGEMENT EDUCATION
In 2006 we found 14 13 programs that offered a bachelor degree in emergency medical services. Three programs provided a comprehensive approach, meaning that more than 21 semester hours covered ems management topics:
Two provided about 21 semester hours in EMS Management, as a major area of concentration within a more generalized degree:
In addition, Springfield College (MA) offers between nine and 15 semester hours of management training in their Emergency Medical Services Management bachelor’s. That makes the EMSM program unique as it provides the clinical paramedic coursework and management courses.
The other eight seven bachelor programs offer a predominately clinical paramedic curriculum. (Lost one program since Fall 2006.)
WHAT CARNEGIE AND FORD WROUGHT IN 1959
Carter A. Daniel, director of business-communication programs at the Rutgers Business School, wrote “How Two National Reports Ruined Business Schools” in the November 13th edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Fifty years ago the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation released reports assessing the state of business education in America.
Daniel wrote MBA: The First Century, in 1998. His point-of-view:
Although generally regarded at the time as a salutary development, the reports, considered half a century later, can be more accurately described as something close to a catastrophe, with consequences felt in every school of business every day.
Daniel reported that the business schools retreated into the theoretical camp. Created more than 50 PhD business programs within a decade. In 1958 only 124 business PhDs were granted, 1,097 scholars received a business PhD in 1974.
His lament is that there is a vast separation of theory and practice, with the professional literature “… consisting almost wholly of articles written by professors for other professors.”
COMBINING THEORY AND PRACTICE
Daniel looks to medicine, engineering and law as providing a better balance between theory and practice, where the professional peer-reviewed journals are read by both academics and providers.
It is not perfect, there remains a struggle to define what defines an academic’s professional practice. Physician-educators still see patients, how to we define the practice of a health care specialist or a public health professor?
Can I get professional practice credit by working as a per-diem paramedic or volunteering as a rescue squad chief? Or (gasp) riding an engine company as a paramedic/firefighter!
Or, can I drop all of my paramedic certifications as an EMS oriented academic?
Mike “FossilMedic” Ward
Related earlier articles:
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