MDA israel

Magen David Adom Medical Teams

Each MDA employee/volunteer must pass a professional training course, at the end of which he/she will receive a professional certification rank according to his/her training: First Aid Responder, Emergency Medical Technician, Senior Emergency Medical Technician or Paramedic. The training, continued education and qualifications are all arranged by the training department of MDA.

 

First Aid Responder

This course is mainly designated for youth volunteers aged 15 and over. Some of them take the course as part of their high school "Personal Commitment" assignment.

The qualification mark of a certified First Aid Responder is red stripes on the sleeves.

Emergency Medical Technician

Each ambulance is driven by an Emergency Medical Technician, who is authorized to render basic life support to the patient.

The Emergency Medical Technician is responsible for arrival at the scene of event, providing basic lifesaving treatment to sick/injured patients, monitoring patients' conditions and patient evacuation to a hospital. In this capacity, the Emergency Medical Technician serves as a medical authority and as the person in charge of the ambulance crew.

Training for the role of Emergency Medical Technician includes: a medic course which covers various topics such as treatment of patient emergency conditions; resuscitation of adults, children and infants; treatment of various injuries; treatment of an injured individual during the pre–hospitalization stage; theory of handling mass casualty incidents, etc. The course also covers topics related to issues of transportation, traffic and operating the ambulance during an emergency drive.

An Emergency Medical Technician undergoes periodic training in the topics of first aid and mass casualty incidents. In addition, proper driving courses take place as determined by MDA management.

The qualification mark of a certified Emergency Medical Technician is gray stripes on the sleeves.

 

Senior Emergency Medical Technician

A Senior Emergency Medical Technician is the advanced rank of an Emergency Medical Technician/ambulance driver who has completed an advanced course which qualifies him/her to work together with the Mobile Intensive Care Unit crew.

Training for the role of a Senior Emergency Medical Technician takes approximately a month and includes advanced level studies: advanced anatomy (structure) and physiology (manner of functioning) progression of human body systems, the cardiac electrical conduction system, advanced first aid treatments and more.

An Emergency Medical Technician/ambulance driver who has received this training and passed all the exams, is certified as a Senior Emergency Medical Technician and authorized to provide medication treatment to patients in accordance with the procedures. In the presence of a Paramedic, a Senior Emergency Medical Technician is also authorized to render an electric shock treatment (defibrillation) to a patient suffering from fatal arrhythmia.

The qualification mark of a certified Senior Emergency Medical Technician is blue stripes on the sleeves.

Paramedic

A Paramedic is a specialist in emergency medicine on the pre-hospitalization level.

The Paramedics are MDA's senior field officers, who successfully completed the course and received a license number from MDA.

The Paramedic's function is giving advanced and efficient life support to patients and injured individuals in medical emergencies, while performing sophisticated and advanced procedures, until patients are evacuated to a hospital/medical center. These aforementioned emergencies might be: heart muscle infarction; drowning; asphyxiation, severe wounds and injuries caused by traffic accidents, terrorist attacks, etc.

The qualification mark of a certified Paramedic is orange stripes on the sleeves.