Emergency medical technician

Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and ambulance technician are terms used in some countries to denote a health care provider of emergency medical services. EMTs are clinicians, trained to respond quickly to emergency situations regarding medical issues, traumatic injuries and accident scenes. Under the British system and those that are influenced by it, they are referred to as ambulance technicians (often shortened to techs), while in the American system and its influenced countries, they are referred to as emergency medical technicians.

EMTs are most commonly found working in ambulances, but should not be confused with "ambulance drivers" or "ambulance attendants" – ambulance staff who in the past were not trained in emergency care or driving. EMTs are often employed by private ambulance services, governments, and hospitals, but are also often employed by fire departments (and seen on fire apparatus), in police departments (and seen on police vehicles), and there are many firefighter/EMTs and police officer/EMTs. EMTs operate under a limited scope of practice. EMTs are normally supervised by a medical director, who is a physician.

Some EMTs are paid employees, while others (particularly those in rural areas) are volunteers.

There is considerable degree of inter-provincial variation in the Canadian Paramedic practice. Although a national consensus (by way of the National Occupational Competency Profile) identifies certain knowledge, skills, and abilities as being most synonymous with a given level of Paramedic practice, each province retains ultimate authority in legislating the actual administration and delivery of emergency medical services within its own borders. For this reason, any discussion of Paramedic Practice in Canada is necessarily broad, and general. Specific regulatory frameworks and questions related to Paramedic practice can only definitively be answered by consulting relevant provincial legislation, although provincial Paramedic Associations may often offer a simpler overview of this topic when it is restricted to a province-by-province basis.

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