I recently gave a presentation on the topic of clinicians in paramedicine. The genesis of the presentation was a discussion I had with someone online where they were vehemently opposed to the idea of anyone in paramedicine being a clinician. We went back and forth for a bit, and ultimately neither of us changed our minds. The gist of their argument was that paramedicine isn’t a real field, nor are we true medical professionals. Only mid-level providers and above are clinicians, and we simply don’t do what they do. Needless to say, that’s not a viewpoint that jives with how I see the field of paramedicine.
I’m not going to go the route of giving you a definition of a clinician or even going through the presentation or my argument. Rather, I’d like to touch on something that struck me about our discussion. It was very important for this person to create a separation between those they considered to be white-collar workers (doctors and mid-level providers) and those they considered to be blue-collar workers (EMTs and paramedics). It shouldn’t surprise you that the person I was having this discussion with was a liberal. Their idea of class has nothing to do with class consciousness, rather, it is centered on the ideal of your position in life. This is a flawed approach and one that misses the forest for the trees.
In most instances, do doctors and mid-level providers make more than EMTs and paramedics? Yes, they very much so do. It’s also true that they generally have more training and education, but that’s not what I’m tackling in this post. The question I eventually asked this well-meaning, but misguided, liberal was simply this: Do those doctors and mid-level providers own their means of production? The answer is that they don’t. They do not own the equipment or buildings they are using to practice their craft. The same is true of those in paramedicine. At the end of the day, both groups are not the masters of their means of production and are thus beholden to others.
If you want to argue about education or capability, that’s a different argument that I am willing to entertain. However, if you’re looking at anyone in white-collar or blue-collar terms instead of bourgeois versus proletariat, you’re using faulty reasoning to come to your conclusions. You better believe I managed to incorporate this into my presentation. I also spoke about education, training, clinical skills, and more as reasons why people practicing paramedicine are clinicians. Beyond that, there is no white-collar or blue-collar distinction, there are only proletariat’s toiling away in the service of capital. Keep that in mind next time you want to act like paramedicine is lesser than any other medical field.
Lead photo courtesy of Unknown – Grammarist
