What makes an EMT or paramedic student "entry-level competent"? In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I've never looked up the definition of competency. I think it means that someone is able to perform to a certain standard that is acceptable to those who might define the standard. The problem that I've seen over my 20+ years in EMS is that this concept of competency differs from EMT program to EMT program and paramedic school to paramedic shool. Individual instructors also differ in their interpretations of the concept.
So how can we know competent when we see it? What if your definition connflicts with mine?
I don't know the exact answers to this complex question. But let me pose this to all the EMS educators out there:
Would you let me (or any other outside EMS educator) into your classrooms or into the back of your ambulances and allow me to observe and judge your students--the ones you feel are ready to take the National Registry cognitive exam--as to whether or not they are competent? If you're not scared of that, you probably don't have a problem identifying who is or isn't competent.
-Sherm
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