Emergency Medical Services AAS Degree

You graduate prepared to provide optimal response and care to victims of any emergency, disaster, or mass casualty event. Skills include, but are not limited to:

• patient assessment and stabilization
• medication administration
• airway management and ventilation
• patient records and documentation
• wound care

Explore Courses, Details, and Costs

Real-world work experience ensures you have the skills you need to succeed in your career.

Using a fully-equipped ambulance and Hawkeye’s state-of-the-art patient simulator lab, you learn how to handle and react to various emergency medical scenarios.

You get hands-on experience with assessment, triage, patient transport, and more.

This is a partial list of employers who have hired graduates from this program:

• Area Ambulance Service, Cedar Rapids
• CARE Ambulance, LLC, Iowa City
• Davenport Fire Department, Davenport
• Mason City Fire Department, Mason City
• MEDIC EMS, Davenport
• Mercy Medical Center, Cedar Rapids
• MercyOne, Waterloo
• North Benton Ambulance Service, Vinton
• Unity Point Health, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, and Marshalltown
• Waterloo Fire Rescue, Waterloo
• Waverly Health Center, Waverly

You can get right to work after your program. Or, if you plan to earn an associate degree and go on to earn a bachelor’s degree, consider your transfer options.

Articulation agreements allow you to transfer your Emergency Medical Services AAS to:

• Columbia Southern University online B.S. Emergency Medical Services Admistration
• Upper Iowa University Public Administration — Emergency Management Emphasis [PDF]
• Upper Iowa University Emergency and Disaster Management [PDF]

If you’re interested in transferring, you must work closely with an academic advisor here and at the transfer institution. This is important to ensure courses transfer and you meet program requirements.

Plan your transfer

The Emergency Services Program is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs upon the recommendation of the Committee on Accreditation of Educational Programs for the Emergency Medical Services Professions (CoAEMSP).

To Contact CAAHEP
Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs
9355 - 113th St. N, #7709
Seminole, FL 33775
727-210-2350

www.caahep.org

To Contact COAEMSP
8301 Lakeview Parkway, Suite 111-312
Rowlett TX 75088
214-703-8445
214-703-8992 (fax)

www.coaemsp.org

The Emergency Medical Services program is authorized by the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services Bureau of Emergency Medical Services and Trauma.

Technical Standards will help you assess your ability to succeed in the EMS program and the EMS profession.

These technical standards include personal and professional attributes, skills, knowledge, physical, medical, safety, and other requirements that an individual must meet in order to be eligible for admission to and retention in the EMS program.

Emergency Medical Services Program Technical Standards.

Hawkeye Community College EMS education program’s mission is to provide high quality, relevant, and accurate EMS education and training opportunities for individuals, agencies, institutions, and organizations; both career and volunteer; in Hawkeye Community College’s service district.

Hawkeye Community College's paramedic program goal is to prepare competent entry-level Paramedics in the cognitive (knowledge), psychomotor (skills), and affective (behavior) learning domains with or without exit points at the Advanced Emergency Medical Technician and/or Emergency Medical Technician, and/or Emergency Medical Responder levels.

As a future emergency services responder, you need to use good judgment in all areas of your personal, professional, and scholastic interactions and activities; and must keep your record clean. All hospitals, EMS, and fire agencies require background checks for internships, volunteer placements, and employment.

Be aware that character counts and your behavior can sabotage your ability to graduate from this program and your ability to work in the field. Consider what your actions and criminal history says about you….i.e. an OWI conviction indicates that you demonstrate poor judgment by drinking to excess and deciding to drive, which may kill or injure you or another person.

If you want to work in emergency services, avoid these issues:

• Acquiring speeding tickets or safety violation citations.
• Acquiring a suspended driver’s license or citations for driving with a suspended license.
• Participating in underage drinking, using fake IDs, or buying alcohol for underage persons.
• Use or abuse of prescription drugs, street drugs, club drugs (ecstasy), marijuana, or synthetic drugs.
• Engaging in theft of property, goods, or services.
• Assault or battery related cases.

You will not be employable in emergency services if you have:

• Felony convictions.
• Domestic abuse convictions.
• Placement on an abuse registry (sex offender, child/elder abuse).
• Drug convictions, or history of drug use or abuse (methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, etc.) Each agency (city, county, state, or federal) sets their own limits on marijuana use from zero tolerance to a limited amount of use, and factors in how recent the use was.

Ultimately, potential employers will rationalize your behavior by this criteria: If you know or reasonably believe an action is illegal or will cause harm then the best candidate will take responsibility, demonstrate self-control, and not do it.

Lastly, employers will ask our faculty for references. Students need to know that full time faculty and adjunct faculty members are constantly formally and informally assessing students in terms of academic performance, attendance, honesty, professionalism, social skills, maturity, and appearance so that we can make objective assessments when asked. Your interactions count, and we are here to mentor you.