Invention

Paramedic

A 1966 report revealed that ambulance crews had less training than firefighters.

United States · 1966

In 1966, the National Academy of Sciences published a report titled Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society. It revealed that ambulance services across the United States had no national standards, that many ambulance attendants had no medical training, and that a person having a heart attack in the street often received less skilled care than a soldier wounded on a battlefield.1

The report catalyzed a series of reforms. In 1969, a pilot program in Miami trained firefighters to perform advanced emergency medical procedures in the field, including cardiac defibrillation and intravenous drug administration.2 Similar programs launched in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Columbus, Ohio. These responders operated at a level "parallel to medicine," and the term "paramedic" came into wide use to describe them.3

1966

The year a National Academy of Sciences report exposed the absence of emergency medical standards

The Emergency Medical Services Systems Act of 1973 provided federal funding to establish coordinated EMS systems across the country, standardizing training requirements and equipment.4 The television show Emergency!, which premiered on NBC in 1972, depicted the work of Los Angeles County paramedics and helped build public understanding and support for the new profession.5

The occupation that is now standard in every developed country did not exist in any organized form before the late 1960s. Emergency medical technicians and paramedics number over 260,000 in the United States alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.6

Timeline

1966

The National Academy of Sciences published its landmark report on emergency medical failures.

1969

A pilot program in Miami trained firefighters to perform advanced emergency medical procedures.

1973

The Emergency Medical Services Systems Act provided federal funding for coordinated EMS systems.

Endnotes

1 National Academy of Sciences, Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1966).

2 Jeff J. Clawson and Kate Boyd Dernocoeur, Principles of Emergency Medical Dispatch, 3rd ed. (Salt Lake City: Priority Press, 2003), 10-15.

3 Vincent D. Mosesso Jr. et al., "The Paramedic," in Wilderness Medicine, 7th ed., ed. Paul S. Auerbach (Philadelphia: Elsevier, 2017).

4 Emergency Medical Services Systems Act of 1973, Pub. L. No. 93-154, 87 Stat. 594.

5 Jack Webb and Robert A. Cinader, creators, Emergency! (NBC, 1972-1977).

6 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "EMTs and Paramedics," Occupational Outlook Handbook, accessed March 2026.