EMS2712

I am responsible for On-Duty Continuing Education on my Unit day. I am looking for suggestions for scenarios and/or lectures to do this. I am looking at about 2 hours of time per station, that I am able to teach. I am supposed to have a new rotation every 6 weeks(ballpark). We have 10 stations, and there is some built time for paperwork, office days, or teaching other courses(ACLS, AMLS, and the like). Any suggestions?

Dustdevil, the more I read your posts, the more I agree with your way of thinking. We are an ALS level department. At the current time, we only have 4 EMT-Intermediates, and 99 EMT-Paramedics

For some reason even in the government department setting, we don't have a large training budget at all. Department wide, we actually are budgeted more cleaning supplies that ongoing training. We have done some excellent hands on portions. Today we did two hours of self-defense tactics for EMS providers. We did a gross cardiac anatomy lab in which we did heart dissections. We did the same with the respiratory systems, and worked it into a surgical airway lab. This will be the 5th refresher I have done in the past two and a half years, and I think total I have spent about 400 dollars. I am just looking for ways to spice it up for minimal cost. I feel if they would just give me a budget for the medic refreshers that I could at least PAY my instructors instead of expecting them to do it for free. Doing it for free has made the program more prone to instructor call-offs, and creating bigger headaches for me. If they call off, either I have to find someone else in a hurry, or do lesson prep to cover the lecture. I don't know everything about this job, but I am competent in my job. I am just am not sure how else to spice it up. My numbers keep going up which means I am doing something right. I try to keep my classes under 35. My numbers have justified me to add another refresher to keep up with the demand.

I am a Training Coordinator for a large government system in Ohio. I am looking for ways to spice up our Paramedic Refresher programs. Anything hands-on that you guys can think off would be appreciated.

I apologize Dustdevil for not making my statement a little clearer. That is my fault. Nope as far as the IO's go, I was referring to the EMT-I scope of practice. I know there is another thread for it, but we are now letting the EMT-Basics in Ohio do CPAP

I can say none from what I have seen thus far from personal experience. I have had correct placement as checked by my medical control in all of the attempts. The EMT-I's that I have dealt with that have done this skill has had correct placement as well. I will absolutely agree there is the potential for incorrect placement. I think that proper training is essential, and are required to sign off on this skill at least quarterly with the medical director. If the provider fails the sign off, they are required additional remediation with the Training Officer and Medical Director.

In the State of Ohio, an EMT-I is allowed to perform IO's both manual or the EZ-IO. Our State and local medical director have approved this skill in their scope of practice, and in addition I have taught the mandatory in-service that they had to attend to be allowed to do this skill.

We are using Type 3 Horton Model 553 mounted on E450 chassis. We have a couple of Type 3 Braun units that have now been retired to the reserve fleet. For the most part we like the Horton's. If you want to take a look of them, they are on our site: www.delcoems.org . On a side note, I went to the Horton factory and saw a couple of the new FDNY rigs being built there. I believe they were built on the F-450 chassis. They looked pretty sharp.

We have had CPAP on the truck for the past year. We are using the Bousnigac(spelling?) system. It is used on one oxygen tank with a regulator that goes up to 25 lpm. It is disposable, and an open system. We chose it because it is simple, and we can't overpressure the patient. If the tank runs out, the patient can still breathe through the apparatus. I believe it is sold through the Vit-Aid corporation. If anybody has any questions about it let me know.

Two of the departments I work for have them on their trucks. I have used it 3 time in the past year, and loved it. I ended up getting certified as a trainer, and work with our regional rep backing him up on training for them. The biggest problem I have is that when I have an EMT-I on the crew, they won't step up to use them. I look at these as teaching moments, and I like to let someone who has never done a skill before do it under supervision. I do this because this is the time to make a mistake. Does anyone else have problems with passive EMT's

I run part-time in a system that services a rural area of Ohio. We have 5 stations with 5 staffed trucks, and two back-up rigs available if we need them. We aren't a full-time department, but are a part-time paid service. None of our personnel is full-time, and as long as there are two EMT's on the truck regardless of certification level, the truck is in service. To allow for ALS coverage, we created a roving medic/county supervisor that oversees EMS operations, but also responds as a medic. It works great for our county. If the medic gets there, and sees that he isn't needed, he marks in-service. If there is a medic on the truck, and he needs help the medic rides in as a second medic. If you want further information on our program feel free to ask, and I will see what I can do to help.