Paul Szmal: It is 840 on FLX Morning, we're at 57 degrees under sunny skies. It's time for our Scholastically Speaking segment with our friends from Finger Lakes Community College and joining me this morning is Maverick Greek Rouse who is an instructor and director of their EMT paramedic degree and certificate programs. Maverick, good morning. How are you this morning?
Maverick Greek-Rouse: Good morning, sir. How are you? I am doing well, doing well.
Paul Szmal: There's a difference between an EMT and a paramedic. Some people might think that those terms are interchangeable. They are definitely not. They are definitely not, correct. Can you kind of explain what the difference is between the two?
Maverick Greek-Rouse: Sure. So a EMT is somebody who has gone to school. It's usually about four months long. They go to school two evenings a week usually and they learn things like basic bleeding and shock control, basic airway management, basic few medications, just a handful. They also learn CPR and AD use. They learn, you know, kind of extrication, like spinal immobilization type stuff.
Paramedic is 16 months of two nights a week class plus thousands of hours of clinical time in a hospital and ride time out in the field. Paramedics learn things like advanced airway management, so putting in breathing tubes to people, giving all kinds of medications for things like cardiac complaints where someone's heart is going too slow or too fast. We learn cardiology, so EKG interpretation. We can do surgical cricothyroidotomy, like cutting a hole in someone's neck to put a tube in there if we need to. We can shock people with, you know, kind of the same CPR shock that everybody thinks of, but we also shock people that still have pulses in order to kind of slow their heart down a little bit. It's just way more advanced. So you know, the definition of paramedic is beside the doctor. So we do learn a lot of the things that physicians know. We're just doing it in a horrendously uncontrolled environment and bringing basically the emergency room to your house or wherever you may be when you call 901.
Paul Szmal: Excellent explanation of that. And FLCC offers that 16-month paramedic program. What can you tell me about the features of that program, Maverick?
Maverick Greek-Rouse: So FLCC offers the paramedic program. It is 16 months. It starts every January. And it's currently SUNY ReConnect through New York State, which allows people between the ages of 25 to 55 to go to college, in essence, for free. The paramedic program is part of that. You have to be enrolled in the associate's degree portion.
So you can actually be a paramedic kind of two ways. One is the associate's degree. So you come into FLCC and you take your general education requirements, just like every other college student does. And then you go on to take the paramedic program. And then if you don't want to get an AAS or you have really no interest in getting an actual degree, we have the certificate program, which you come into FLCC for just the paramedic portion. So you come in from January to the following May, and you graduate with a certificate in paramedic, which allows you to sit for either the National Registry or the New York State certifying exams. So you could still go out and work in the field. You don't necessarily need a degree to work in EMS. You just have to be certified by New York State. So you could still do that. You just don't have the associate's degree.
Paul Szmal: Right. So that's basically the option of how far you want to go and how far you want to carry things on. I'm noticing here as of fall of 2024, the number of students enrolled in the program has actually been on the increase here, up to 36 as of 2024. And that was when the program started. It was somewhere around 15 or 20. So more and more people are taking an interest in this line of work.
Maverick Greek-Rouse: Yeah, I think it has a lot to do with some of the TV shows, actually. They're kind of seeing EMS a little bit differently on national television. Some other stuff that kind of helped was the DeMar Hamlin incident during the football game that was EMS put on a national stage. So people are starting to see and understand that we are not just ambulance drivers. We don't just come out and throw you into a vehicle and drive you off to the doctors to take care of you. We actually bring the emergency room to you. And people are kind of seeing that a little bit more. And I think people are getting interested in the field. And I've worked in EMS my entire adult life, and it's the best job in the world. You just have to give it a shot and it will grab you.
Paul Szmal: I come from a family line that has not only fire department participants, but some EMTs and some folks with paramedic training on that side of the family. So I'm pretty familiar with the concept. And I remember my first exposure to paramedics was actually watching the old television show Emergency back when I was a kid.
Maverick Greek-Rouse: Yes, good old Johnny and Roy.
Paul Szmal: Yes, absolutely. I don't know though, I think my students are getting a little bit younger because a lot of them have never heard of that. Just tell them to watch the reruns on a streaming service. I'm sure somebody's got it out there somewhere.
Maverick Greek-Rouse: Exactly. Absolutely.
Paul Szmal: There's an information session to meet faculty and see the facilities at FLCC that's coming up.
Maverick Greek-Rouse: Yes, so we are housed out of the Geneva campus on Pulteney Street. So on August 19th at 1 p.m. come out, see the facility, the lab, the campus. The Geneva campus is quite beautiful there. And we'll all be there, the faculty of the program, the lab instructors. So you can meet us, talk to us, ask us any questions that you'd like to ask. And it should be a good time.
Paul Szmal: And the application deadline for the 16-month program, when is that Maverick?
Maverick Greek-Rouse: Yes, so the certificate deadline is October 15th because it's not the same as a regular college application. It is, but it also requires you to kind of take care of some steps after you apply. So we need you to apply by October 15th so that you can get all those steps done in time for class to start in January.
Paul Szmal: Okay. And then there's also an EMT skills test that you're administering in December?
Maverick Greek-Rouse: Yes. So in order to be a paramedic student, you have to have a valid New York State EMT certification for the remainder of the program. And we are holding a BLS skills, EMT skills test out a couple of different dates in December because we have to prove competency at the basic level before we can bring you in as a paramedic student. So on December 15th or the 18th, you don't have to come to both, just one. Between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. our lab instructors and faculty of the program will be there testing out people's EMT skills in order to make sure that they're good to go for the program in January.
Paul Szmal: Now, would that also include people looking for recertification that maybe led their certification labs or is this specifically for FLCC students?
Maverick Greek-Rouse: So this is specifically for students that want to go to the paramedic program. There are ways to recertify your basic EMT card if you so choose. We actually do all of our EMT education through the Finger Lakes Regional EMS Council. You get credit issued to you from FLCC, but you're actually taking the class through the Finger Lakes Regional EMS Council. Good news though, they are housed in the Geneva campus as well. So if you stop in to the EMS office, they're more than happy to help kind of get you on your way with that.
Paul Szmal: And I want to reemphasize something that you mentioned at the top of the conversation, which is that the program that we're talking about here qualifies for that new SUNY ReConnect state program.
Maverick Greek-Rouse: Correct, yep. So if you're an adult between the ages of 25 to 55 and you do not currently have a degree, you could have attended college but did not finish, the paramedic program associate's degree is eligible through SUNY ReConnect. And again, that's for students between the ages of 25 and 55.
Paul Szmal: So Maverick, if people want to find out more information about the program, how can they go about doing that?
Maverick Greek-Rouse: So there's a couple different ways. They can either email me and my contact information is on the FLCC website, or you can go to the FLCC website in academics and click the paramedic program and it will show you the sample course schedule. There's a course outline, the syllabus is up there, but flcc.edu.
Paul Szmal: All right, Maverick, thank you for the information and continued success on generating the next generation of EMTs and eventually paramedics.
Maverick Greek-Rouse: Thank you.
Paul Szmal: All right, it is 8.50 on FLX morning.
