Online EMT Course in Texas — Get NREMT-Ready

The curriculum follows the National EMS Education Standards top to bottom, so nothing you study is wasted on the NREMT. You move from the foundations of EMS operations and patient assessment into the airway, breathing, and circulation skills you will use on almost every call.

• Patient assessment - scene size-up, primary and secondary assessment, vital signs, and history taking
• Airway management, oxygen delivery, and assisted ventilation with a bag-valve mask
• Trauma care - bleeding control, shock, fractures, burns, and spinal motion restriction
• Medical emergencies - cardiac, respiratory, diabetic, stroke, allergic reaction, and overdose
• CPR and AED use to the American Heart Association standard
• Childbirth, pediatric, and geriatric emergencies, plus lifting and moving patients safely

EMT is an entry-level certification, so the door is wide. You must be at least 18 years old, have a high school diploma or GED, and be able to read, write, and understand English at the level the coursework and exam demand. You will also need to pass a background check and immunization requirements before your clinical rotations, because you are placed in real emergency departments and on real ambulances with real patients.

No prior medical experience is required. Plenty of our students come straight out of high school, and just as many are career-changers, firefighters adding a cert, or nursing hopefuls building a resume.

TPSTA is approved by the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS), the agency that licenses EMS providers in Texas. Completing the course makes you eligible to sit for the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians (NREMT) exam - a computer-adaptive cognitive test plus a hands-on psychomotor skills evaluation.

Pass the NREMT and you apply to DSHS for your Texas EMT certification. That state cert is what lets you work on a licensed ambulance service anywhere in Texas.

Tuition is $1,750. That covers your instruction, skills labs, and the coordination of your clinical placement. Budget separately for the NREMT exam fee, your DSHS certification application, a stethoscope, and required immunizations or a background check. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which is a big part of why our EMT tuition sits well below what a community college charges for the same certification.

This is a hybrid program built for people who work. The didactic portion is online, so you read, watch, and test on your own time. The skills labs and the 60 hours of clinical rotations happen in person, because there is no way to learn to manage a real airway or lift a real patient from a screen. We run cohorts throughout the year at the Bastrop campus.

A Texas EMT certification qualifies you to work on a 911 ambulance, on an interfacility transport unit, on an event medical team, or as a firefighter-EMT. It is also the required foundation for Advanced EMT and, beyond that, Paramedic. Many of our graduates use EMT as the fastest paid entry into healthcare and public safety, then keep climbing.