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You are not alone mate, when we moved from vocational qualifications for Ambulance Officers to a mandatory Bachelors Degree you would not believe how horribly some of the students got treated. Good job on your grade. Oh BTW adrenaline for anaphylaxis - 1mg in 1,000ml NaCl 2gtts/s tirated to patient condition ie 1:1:2 ... easy as pie and hard to forget

I'm in upstate New York. NY isn't a Registry state, but I'm getting mine because my wife and I plan on relocating, most likely to Virginia, so we're closer to her mother, and we like the area, etc. Now, I completely agree that more education should be required! That being said, even with EMS education as it stands today, the test could have been a lot more thorough! As I said in my OP, I seriously think a trained monkey could have passed it. Another poster stated that they can test on the DOT curriculum, current ACLS and current PHTLS standards. Most of that wasn't in there! If it was, there were an average of less than 3 questions per subject, and even those seemed similar to one another. Now, it probably doesn't need to be 1000 questions, but I seriously question the validity of a test that can even come to predict competency over a broad range of subjects with a grand total of 80 questions, and no more than about two per subject. I suppose I wouldn't object to the difficulty level of the test if I knew that all areas of the country were closely supervised by medical directors, with strict standards and QA processes. It is, after all, easier and more thorough to manage competency at the local level, IMO. Unfortunately, there's too many systems that are "a patch and a pulse." You have the patch, and a pulse, you go on the road, with all your toys, and little to no oversight in how you use them, until you screw up big time. Or perhaps until you screw up big time multiple times. And by then it's too late for your patients that you screwed up on. (I understand, everybody screws up. But most of us recognize when we do, and report it, and correct the deficiency. The above comments are directed to those services/areas where the level is set so low providers may not realize they even did mess up.) If more people fail, so what? (IMHO) That makes the schools actually teach the curriculum! Of course, the curriculum standards need to be increased too, but I'm honestly of the opinion that schools could be seriously shortchanging their students, even given the current standards, and still have a high pass rate. The curriculum standards will NEVER change until what's already being "taught" is ADEQUATELY taught!

Yea man I guess I was being a sourpuss you know. But I do have to understand that I am a rookie and take ALL criticism. But all the advice from you guys really did help and gave me a lot of reassurance and confidence to be the best damn EMT I can be. thanks a lot I really do appreciate it

Sorry, I should have said that of the medics I've talked to (not many) and from the posts on the forums, I got the impression that most medics either uses customers' own car seats or no restraints when transporting pediatric patients. I agree that the tone I used was a little over-the-top, so sorry about that. I started the topic to foucs discussion on pediatric restraints on the forums becuase so far I've only come across bits of discussion here and there. I'm an undergraduate mechanical engineering and industrial design student currently working on a research project looking at pediatric restraint designs as a summer project. I'm in the research and benchmarking stage right now and hopefully from the input on this thread, I will be able to gather good information to generate some design concepts. So thanks to everyone who has contributed so far! Keep it rolling! Thanks UGLy! So where do you store the child seats in your rigs? Don't they take up a lot of space? Also, how heavy or how big does a child have to be in order to not require a child seat per your opinion? As I responded to doc's post, this is for a summer research project aimed at possibly generating some design concepts. Thanks a lot for posting!

Bullcrap, I'm professional and courteous in all of my interactions and have still been threatened and assaulted. Your spouting typical administrative BS. "We can't control the publics reaction, so therefore the problem must be you".

They need to come up with some sort of pre-course 'dumbass test'. Because new EMT's make me hypertensive. Just thought I'd put that out there. You know, like some test to weed out the ones that are too fricken stupid to perform as care-givers.

FSM came down and collected me already. I'm posting this from the great plate of spaghetti in the sky. (side note: free wifi up here)

Yes thanks for the spell check. I was in a rush. But getting advice was the intentions of this post. I understand what I did wrong now after the fact. I guess I should be more specific. What is a good way to prep myself for a call as such when one has that adrenaline rushing and tunnel vision kicks in. I'm an EMT but i'm a regular person too so straight up advice is what I want. I don't need senior EMT's to get on the post and be pompous pricks just some pertinent criticism and advice to calm that rush and stay level headed. I know exactly what I did wrong your explaining everything in my textbooks. i know it. I just failed to apply it as I shouldve...

JUST TO CLARIFY I WASNT IMPLYING THAT YOU WERE BEING A PRICK I'M SORRY IF THAT SEEMED LIKE I DIRECTED THAT COMMENT TOWARDS YOU SIR. I DID FEEL YOU WERE PRETTY MUCH TELLING ME WHAT I KNEW I JUST GOT THE JITTERS A LITTLE AND WANTED A WAY TO OVERCOME THAT. BUT THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ AND RESPOND TO MY POST. AGGRAVATION MIGHT'VE SHOWN ITSELF IN MY LAST POST BUT I AM GRATEFUL FOR ALL THE ADVICE> THANKS GUYS! thank you sir. I apologized to that gentlemen I wasnt implying that he was being a prick I've just seen some seniors be pricks in the little time I've worked and I'm still a little agitated but I am grateful for this advice. I really appreciate it