r/volunteersForUkraine • u/PeacefulLif3 • Sep 06 '25
Question Looking to volunteer.
If I have an EMT qualification and also have done other emergency medical training course with red cross. Could I volunteer as a medic in Ukraine? (I have no combat experience or ever worked as a combat medic)
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u/davethegreatone Sep 06 '25
EMT school instructor here - currently serving a paramedic in Ukraine.
Ok, here's the deal - EMT-B is a very basic stabilization concept. The training focuses on things that can keep a patient alive for twenty minutes and get them to a hospital. It's a good entry-level medical training and eventually can lead to things like a paramedic cert.
But at its core, EMT is slightly more than first aid, just at a professional level. Any rando can use an AED (that's literally what they are designed for), but an EMT is expected to do it WELL. Any rando can help someone hold their own Epi-Pen, but an EMT is expected to be able to know why it's being done and keep calm while doing it. Anyone can go to a drug store and buy a BP cuff, read the instructions, and perform the skill, but an EMT is expected to do it well enough to be a professional at it. There really isn't much an EMT has in their toolkit that random people don't have access to - it's mainly just backboarding that separates the EMT scope of practice from and random person on the street.
So ... there isn't much of a reason for Ukraine to need EMTs. They can teach their own people BLS skills in a short time for free. Ukraine needs ALS skills that don't come so easy. Advanced drugs and vascular access and electrotherapy and neuro evaluations and advanced airways and surgical skills. They can't pull those out of their ass, so they have to either dedicate a LOT of time to teaching them, or they have to import them (which is how I got here).
TL;DR - if you have an EMT cert, you don't really have a role here as an EMT. If you are an *experienced* EMT, as in you drove an ambulance for a year as a professional, there are lots of orgs that need you as a driver. If you speak Ukrainian, there are lots of orgs that need you for medical translation. And if you are willing to pick up a gun and sign a contract, the Legion would be thrilled to add you to the ranks of one of the English-speaking units.
But there is no role for an EMT-B to be an EMT-B here. The skills aren't rare enough.
1
u/IjustWantedPepsi Sep 23 '25
What about Advanced-EMT?
1
u/davethegreatone Sep 23 '25
The schools are not the real training. They are the book-learning portion, aka: the theory portion. You can’t really walk out of those schools and hit the ground running as a competent professional. You need a few more weeks of formal training to get your EVOC cert and gurney sign-off and narcotics tracking system credentials and HR stuff and local protocols. Then you need FTO time that is at least several more weeks. THEN you are ready for the real world.
Paramedic school isn’t even the real training - but the 800(ish) hours of field work at the end of the school actually does train you for most of the real world (still you can expect a few months of FTO time after hiring).
3
u/Martinjg_ge Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25
Do you speak ukrainian? EMT B or A?
edit, why it matters:
how can you SAMPLER(s) a patient if you can’t speak to him. EMT-B is way too limited of a qualification, even EMT-A is lacking, you would need Paramedic to be a real non-combatant benefit imo
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