Certificate in Primary Care Paramedic Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), Canada

This program offers a rewarding and challenging career for those individuals interested in providing emergency medical services to the sick and injured in a prehospital care environment. Primary Care Paramedic (formerly known as Emergency Medical Technician-Ambulance) training utilizes the facilities at NAIT, active treatment hospitals, basic and advanced life support ambulance services and other allied emergency services.

In addition to the program being offered twice a year at its main campus, NAIT also offers the program twice per year in partnership with Lethbridge College and once per year in partnership with Lakeland College as part of its Emergency Services Technology Diploma Program.

What You Will Learn
Hands-on, industry-relevant training
In this certificate program, you will learn about providing basic emergency care, including assessment and treatment of patients with a variety of medical disorders and injuries.  Your learning environment will consist of lectures, labs, clinical simulations and practicum.  Areas of learning will be focused on but are not excluded to:

• Introduction to emergency medical services and pre-hospital care
• Human anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology
• Basic life support skills including medical and trauma management
• Pharmacology
• Diverse patient populations including management of some pediatric disorders and assisting with childbirth

You will also be trained in physical and mental health self-care, to ensure you are prepared for a demanding patient care environment.

Practicum will consist of placement with an ambulance service and one week in an acute care hospital emergency department. You will be expected to work shifts including evenings, nights and weekends, and you may be required to travel outside of Edmonton for your practicum placement.

The first 6 courses in the program consist of a mixture of lectures and labs of approximately 400 hours, and the last course will consist of practicum placement of approximately 240 hours.

You can expect to spend, on average:

• 28 hours per week attending classes over the course of a semester
• 15 to 20 hours per week studying and completing class assignments
• 40 hours per week on practicum