Credits granted for professional education of paramedics and nurses at at US colleges with paired programmes

The goal of this paper is to provide an actual evidence base to confirm or dispel anecdotal belief among experienced paramedic faculty that paramedic professional education paralleled or exceeded the professional education of associate degree registered nurses, which seems to be the generally accepted understanding of the general public, the healthcare community, and even practising paramedics.

This research follows up on earlier published peer-reviewed research comparing paramedic and nursing professional education in the Northeast United States, where the author found that at 23 colleges in the Northeast United States that had both paramedic and registered nursing education programmes offered for college credit, paramedic professional education required a mean of 41 credits compared to a mean of 37 credits for nursing professional education. (Phelps, 2015). This paper extends that research to all US 2-year colleges with accredited paramedic and nursing programmes. This research is important, because if paramedics and nurses have equivalent professional education, then the current status of paramedics as a subordinate profession to nursing (in many states and settings) may not be valid and occupational boundaries for each profession may need to be redefined.