Starting EMT School - Help?!?

[SARMedTech]

I think that was the speech we got when we started with a class of 28, half that at mid-term, 7 on the night of the final exam and 5 took NREMT.  Dont let 'em psych you out. And when you get to the A and P section, remember that the tibia leads and the fibula follows.

[Slim]

.  2) There is no fibia. 

Der....don't I feel like an idiot  .  That's what I get for posting around these parts after four hours of watching "Profession of Arms" SOS videos.  The blond with the monotone made me do it.

Like I said, I speak English, and the docs would rather hear that or "Tib/Fib" than listen to someone hyped up on caffiene halfway through a shift from hades say "Transverse fracture of the distal tibia/fibula" any day.

Good luck CPGuy, don't let the odds get ya down.

[flyerthom]

Fibula.....

Ok Night 1 is done, Let me just clarify a few things.

31 Started the class, 28 finished...And that just tonight.....

Paperwork must be done in time, complete, and without mistake, or you get it back.

Every 15 minutes you are out of class = 1 hours of makeup time.

Advanced reading of homework is a must, because they hit you with PPT and a chapter in about 30 minutes.

Keep a sense of humor about it all. Laughter is the best stess valve.:



This ought to help for A&P   

[CadetProgramGuy]

Basic Anatomy is hard enough......

Now I have to learn musical Anatomy...............

[CadetProgramGuy]

OK fellas....Medical Terminology....

I have a workbook that follows the textbook....kinda....I have sone terms I need explained that I cannot find in the book....

I will give the term and give you my idea of the definition...

C/O = In Care of

NOI = ??

PH/PMH = ??

[flyerthom]

OK fellas....Medical Terminology....

I have a workbook that follows the textbook....kinda....I have sone terms I need explained that I cannot find in the book....

I will give the term and give you my idea of the definition...

C/O = In Care of

NOI = ??

PH/PMH = ??

C/O = complains of  i.e  Patient C/O substernal chest pain / pressure  radiation to LT arm onset at rest approx 1600 hrs

NOI I've never used

PH/ PMH or sometimes PMHx = Previous History or Previous Medical History. i.e

Patient has a PMH of HTN, MI, IDDM, LT Arm traumtic amputation while attempting to hand prop a CAP 172.

[isuhawkeye]

LOL FOF TMB

Little Old Lady

Found on Floor

With a chief complaint of

To many Birth days

[Hoser]

DRT dead right there
ART assuming room temperature
SPT stupid people tricks
TID no not three times a day but typical idiot deal
TED terrible everything disease
TBC total body crunch
plus several others that decorum prohibits me from posting   ;-)

[Jolt]

NOI is "Nature of Illness"

It usually goes along with MOI, "Mechanism of Injury."

[Slim]

DRT dead right there
ART assuming room temperature
SPT stupid people tricks
TID no not three times a day but typical idiot deal
plus several others that decorum prohibits me from posting   ;-)

CTD circling the drain
ARTG allergic reaction to gravity
FDGB fall down go boom
HUA need I explain

[BlueLakes1]

DRT dead right there
ART assuming room temperature
SPT stupid people tricks
TID no not three times a day but typical idiot deal
plus several others that decorum prohibits me from posting   ;-)

CTD circling the drain
ARTG allergic reaction to gravity
FDGB fall down go boom
HUA need I explain

That is the coolest portalpeople dude I've ever seen...

You know, I (no kidding here) used to be assigned to a "Squad 51" at work. My partner was named Jon, and my middle name is Roy...

We had fun with that 

[CadetProgramGuy]

Little update.

Exam 1 = 89%, Skills session 1 was basic vitals, immob on backboard ect....

Having a blast in class though.

Scary thought is that a former CAP'er is a skills evaluator in class......

[isuhawkeye]

Who's that.

Hey I dont know your work schedule these days.  Give me a call some time

[CadetProgramGuy]

Former cadet Lowrey.

I work overnights at the hospital
I work 3 evenings a week part time was well
I goto school 2 nights a week
I sleep 1 night a week

Will do in the phone call

[Dustdevil]

If you're going to make a career out of EMS, don't jump into being a paramedic too quick. Be sure you get some good experience as an EMT-B first, it will help you in the long run.

The guy who runs the paramedic program at my college actually told me the exact opposite. I was going to get my EMT-B cert a while back, (I'll be starting paramedic clinicals this May) and my advisor told me that by not having the EMT-B knowledge, they wouldn't have to untrain the quirks I had learned as an EMT-B.

I'd sure like to know what school this is, and who the instructor is.  I'd like to send him a letter of commendation.  Your instructor speaks the wisdom.  This is extremely intelligent and progressive thinking that only the sharpest instructors, or those who have a real background in adult education (not just a stupid EMS instructor course) are on board with yet.  But this is the future of EMS education, and your school realising it is a very good sign.  You'll still find the majority of Paramedic schools still parroting the old skool party line out of ignorance, as well as a warped sense of wanting to see newbies "pay their dues", but it is nonsense.

For a student who is serious about a career in EMS (as opposed to just a hobby or volunteer gig), the only time  that should be spent between EMT school and Paramedic school should be that time spent completing the prerequisite foundation courses, even if your school doesn't require them.  That means, don't even think of starting medic school until you at least have both semesters of Anatomy & Physiology.  If you're serious about a quality educational experience, you won't start until you also have Microbiology, Intro Psychology, Child and Developmental Psychology, Sociology, Algebra, English Composition, and Speech Communcations done too.  In fact, any Paramedic school that doesn't require those is to be suspected of suckage.

Also, any Paramedic school not Nationally Accredited should be suspected of suckage.  Check your school against this list: http://www.caahep.org/Find_An_Accredited_Program.aspx

Give me somebody with a blank slate and the above course load, and I'll give you a well prepared, above average medic.  Give me somebody that just wasted two years playing ambulance driver as an EMT and I'll waste two semesters trying to break bad habits and convince them they don't know what they think they know.  If I pass them at all.

Thirty-five years in EMS (and fifteen as an RN), and absolutely the best, most competent medics I have ever had the pleasure to work with were all medics who went straight to Paramedic school without ever working as an EMT.  Oh, and they all had a lot of college work too.  Be one of the few, the proud.  Don't be just another average loser.

Best of luck!

[Major Lord]

FTF= Failure to fly
LOL in NAD=Little old Lady in No apparent Distress (see also LOM)
QS= "Q" sign
OS= "O" sign
GOMER= Get Out of My Emergency Room
Gomere= Female Gomer
OH=Orthopaedic Height ( The height that a patient must be dropped from to cause fractures)

[SAR-EMT1]

If you're going to make a career out of EMS, don't jump into being a paramedic too quick. Be sure you get some good experience as an EMT-B first, it will help you in the long run.

The guy who runs the paramedic program at my college actually told me the exact opposite. I was going to get my EMT-B cert a while back, (I'll be starting paramedic clinicals this May) and my advisor told me that by not having the EMT-B knowledge, they wouldn't have to untrain the quirks I had learned as an EMT-B.

I'd sure like to know what school this is, and who the instructor is.  I'd like to send him a letter of commendation.  Your instructor speaks the wisdom.  This is extremely intelligent and progressive thinking that only the sharpest instructors, or those who have a real background in adult education (not just a stupid EMS instructor course) are on board with yet.  But this is the future of EMS education, and your school realising it is a very good sign.  You'll still find the majority of Paramedic schools still parroting the old skool party line out of ignorance, as well as a warped sense of wanting to see newbies "pay their dues", but it is nonsense.

For a student who is serious about a career in EMS (as opposed to just a hobby or volunteer gig), the only time  that should be spent between EMT school and Paramedic school should be that time spent completing the prerequisite foundation courses, even if your school doesn't require them.  That means, don't even think of starting medic school until you at least have both semesters of Anatomy & Physiology.  If you're serious about a quality educational experience, you won't start until you also have Microbiology, Intro Psychology, Child and Developmental Psychology, Sociology, Algebra, English Composition, and Speech Communcations done too.  In fact, any Paramedic school that doesn't require those is to be suspected of suckage.

Also, any Paramedic school not Nationally Accredited should be suspected of suckage.  Check your school against this list: http://www.caahep.org/Find_An_Accredited_Program.aspx

Give me somebody with a blank slate and the above course load, and I'll give you a well prepared, above average medic.  Give me somebody that just wasted two years playing ambulance driver as an EMT and I'll waste two semesters trying to break bad habits and convince them they don't know what they think they know.  If I pass them at all.

Thirty-five years in EMS (and fifteen as an RN), and absolutely the best, most competent medics I have ever had the pleasure to work with were all medics who went straight to Paramedic school without ever working as an EMT.  Oh, and they all had a lot of college work too.  Be one of the few, the proud.  Don't be just another average loser.

Best of luck!

I dont know you, so please do not construe this as an attack.

That said: NO!
As someone who has been a basic for a year while waiting for a slot to open in a local P class ( There are so many folks that want to take it, there is a waiting list)
I have seen several medics that went from B-to-P without anything except the 1 required ambulance shift and the 8 hours required in the ER for the B-cert.

Ive had a 'medic ' ask me (basic) if it was safe to start a saline line on a patient without first getting approval from medical control.  Same guy cared more about administering things like EPI and was down right careless when pushing morphine.

Ive also had a medic- doing ride time to apply for a job. Gets a call for a guy who fell and has a possible closed fracture to the femur. Ok... get on scene, the guy is on the ground screaming in pain.  The medic (the jobhunter, not my partner) asks the vic if he can walk to the ambulance so that he can start a line and get some pain meds flowin.

Now, you can say that these folks are applicants to the Darwins and leave it there. BUT the fact is, that in the process of focusing on getting the ALS down they have completely forgotten their BLS foundations. That is dangerous for pt care and irresponsible on the part of the instructors not to screen for this in class.

Remember the adage, walk before you run.

Paramedics save patients, Basics save the Paragods.

[Dustdevil]

I dont know you, so please do not construe this as an attack.

That said: NO!

I don't know you either, but I wouldn't attack you even if I did.

That said, do the math.  Your one year as a basic vs. my thirty-five years in EMS, including plenty of time as an instructor and field preceptor for paramedic students.  With all due respect, LT, you're speaking of things you really aren't qualified to authoritatively comment upon.

Ive had a 'medic ' ask me (basic) if it was safe to start a saline line on a patient without first getting approval from medical control.  Same guy cared more about administering things like EPI and was down right careless when pushing morphine.

Ive also had a medic- doing ride time to apply for a job. Gets a call for a guy who fell and has a possible closed fracture to the femur. Ok... get on scene, the guy is on the ground screaming in pain.  The medic (the jobhunter, not my partner) asks the vic if he can walk to the ambulance so that he can start a line and get some pain meds flowin.

No doubt that there are idiots at all levels, regardless of experience.  You don't have enough time to sit here and read all the horror stories I could tell you about so-called "experienced" students, nor would you understand since you are neither a paramedic, paramedic student, or even experienced.  Apparently, you are the victim of the same old skool misinformation that permeates EMS so thoroughly, like an urban legend that never goes away.  This is one of the big reasons that EMS is in the horrible shape that it is.  We have barely progressed at all in three decades because so many people are still living out 1972 reruns of "Emergency!" instead of moving into the future.

Now, you can say that these folks are applicants to the Darwins and leave it there. BUT the fact is, that in the process of focusing on getting the ALS down they have completely forgotten their BLS foundations. That is dangerous for pt care and irresponsible on the part of the instructors not to screen for this in class.

Interesting theory, but you FAIL to illustrate it, since both of the examples you give are of them forgetting their ALS, not their BLS.  Regardless, it's just pure nonsense.  Anybody who "forgets" their so-called BLS "skills" simply isn't cut out for EMS in the first place.  Nobody "forgets" how to take vital signs or do CPR, which is all EMT is.  The more obvious explanation for what you are seeing is that your employer sucks.  Any agency putting rookie medics with a basic EMT sucks, plain and simple.  The failure of those medics is on the agency's shoulders, not the medics.  Even new physicians are supervised by more senior physicians.

Remember the adage, walk before you run.

Paramedics save patients, Basics save the Paragods.

Nonsense.  I sure hope you don't wear a t-shirt with that on it, because if you do, people are laughing behind your back.  Every EMT who ever thought he was "saving" me in three decades turned out to be wrong.  About half of them ended up unemployed shortly thereafter.  EMTs are a dime a dozen in this country.  You know why?  Cuz we can produce them in a month or less for next to nothing, and half of them work for free.  There is nothing indispensable about that.

An EMT brings absolutely nothing to the table that another paramedic partner wouldn't bring better.  I'd take the greenest medic as a partner over the most "experienced" EMT any day.  All the experience in the world is absolutely useless unless it is built upon a solid educational foundation.  Again, do the math.  120 hours of night school is hardly an education.  It's just an overpriced first aid course.  Future plans are already being discussed for EMT to be completely eliminated from the professional EMS (Paramedic) curriculum. Paramedic will be an entry level college degree, like every other medical profession, and EMT will become the new First Responder, which is really all it is worth.  Nurses aides and nail technicians have more training than an EMT.

Ask yourself this; do physicians have to practice as nurses before medical school?  Do nurses have to practice as nurses aides before nursing school?  If this basic experience theory is so sound, then why is it that no other medical profession in the world thinks it is important?  Why don't you have to work at Jiffy Lube for two years before you can enrol in a mechanical engineering programme at the university?  Why don't you have to be a cop for two years before going to law school?  The answer is self evident.  EMS is the only one that is so young that it has no true education professionals running education -- just a bunch of nimrods with a week-long instructor course -- and has not yet progressed beyond it's amateur roots.

By the time I retire, I'd like to see EMS finally become a real, educated career profession, instead of a part-time job for firemonkeys, and an exciting hobby for whacker vollies.  Guys like Redfire11 and his programme director are the ones leading the way to that future.  They're the guys I want to see taking my profession into the 21st century.  God bless them.

[Jolt]

Can a moderator please put a lock on this thread?
I've seen paramedics rant like this before and it just doesn't stop/get better.  Although I'll admit that they have their points at times, this particular poster seems incredibly worked up (constant use of the word "suck," and namecalling such as "firemonkeys" and "whacker vollies") and the thread is only going to go down hill from here.