Experience and mentoring requirements for competence in new/inexperienced paramedics

Abstract

A paramedic may be unprepared to practice alone or with an inexperienced partner immediately following completion of training. Emergency medical services systems have not generally set standards to ensure that a newly-licensed paramedic is competent to practice alone. Many other trades and professions, including health care providers, require many hours of mentoring or apprenticeship prior to working in an unsupervised environment. This paper summarizes mentoring requirements for other clinical professions and reviews studies from the out-of-hospital and hospital literature that demonstrate a positive correlation between experience and outcome and/or competence. The author recommends specific benchmarking and supervision by a training officer or an experienced paramedic to ensure competence in new and inexperienced paramedics.