The University of California, Los Angeles offers a series of courses that will allow you to earn your EMT certification for the first time or renew your certification if it has expired. If you are seeking first-time certification, there is a required EMT preparation class, which focuses on an overview of medical terminology and involves intensive study of anatomy, cardiology, neurology, physiology and other bodily sciences. After completion of this introductory course, you must enroll in a emergency medical technician class, after which you are eligible to sit for the certification exam. This course involves studying causes and symptoms of emergencies and spending 10 hours in simulated patient care and emergency room observations. If you have an expired certificate, you can take the EMT refresher class to regain certification, as long as your certificate has not expired more than two years ago.
Mt. San Antonio is located in the suburb of Walnut, CA, and it is the largest campus in the system of California Community Colleges. The college offers an EMT-paramedic course meant to meet and exceed the Los Angeles County of Health Services requirements for certification. The program involves 16 weeks of intensive course work, involving a 32-hour-per-week commitment. After these weeks in the classroom come five weeks of a clinical internship and eight weeks of shadowing paramedics on the job. Mt. San Antonio's program, with its 39 required credit hours, will give you the experience to earn your certificate and potentially much more.
East Los Angeles College is located in the LA suburb of Monterey Park, CA. The college offers 25 areas of study, and if you are in pursuit of an EMT certification, then the courses for emergency department assistants and first responders are the ones you ought to pursue. To go above and beyond the basic certificate, you might want to pursue a fire technology certificate, which also requires an EMT- certifying course. The fire technology program also prepares you for such careers as dispatcher, paramedic, hazardous materials specialist, fire protection engineer and others.