What to Expect in Paramedic Classes?

[Chris Taylor]

Hey Guys,

I started a topic at the start of my EMT-B course to ask what to expect in clinicals, and everything that was said was extrememely helpful in getting through class, so I'll pose this question. What should I be expecting in Medic? I do know that I'm not going to have a whole lot of free time (Have a 5 week over lap with Firefighter 1 courses and I'm doing a 7 month Medic course).

Thank y'all for all the help

Chris

[paramedicmike]

Seven month paramedic course? Why?

[rock_shoes]

Expect to have less than the ideal standard out of your didactic education. Seven months doesn't even come close to covering the knowledge base you need to be a quality medic. If you want to be a good medic be prepared to spend months studying on your own time to make up for the inadequacies of your program.

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[Kiwiology]

Expect to learn simple behaviouristic responses to standardised stimuli broadly based on empirical epidemiology or biological plausibility which most likely will not be rooted in rigorous current evidence based medicine.

[rock_shoes]

Expect to learn simple behaviouristic responses to standardised stimuli broadly based on empirical epidemiology or biological plausibility which most likely will not be rooted in rigorous current evidence based medicine.

Kiwi to English translation: Learn to be a protocol monkey.

Sorry, but that's all you will have time to learn over such a short time frame.

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[emtdennis]

Rock,

Thanks for deciphering the Kiwiese!!!!

I was just going to tell OP to cancel all plans with the family and keep the coffee pot going.

[Bieber]

Kiwi and Rock basically nailed it. With seven months of training, I wouldn't expect to truly learn a great deal about how to be an autonomous, clinically-minded practitioner of medicine. I would expect you to race through anatomy and physiology, cover the bare surface of pathophysiology, pharmacology, etc, and focus on skills and immediate, protocol-based responses to symptoms independent of a deeper look into the underlying pathophysiology of the disease process causing the illness.

Aspirin and nitro (x3) for chest pain (let the machine interpret the 12-lead ECG); albuterol for difficulty breathing; CPR, intubation and copious amounts of meds for cardiac arrest (remember, the tube and the drugs > chest compressions); something about pain meds but they better be "really hurting"; Benedryl and epi for anaphylaxis; scoop and run on trauma. High flow oxygen, IV and transport for everything else.

That's about it!

P.S. Not trying to be a dick, man, but you're going to get out of paramedic school what you put into it--and you just can't hope to gain a lot of education in seven months time. My real advice would be to say fuck off to the seven month program and go find yourself a good, Associates degree conferring college-based program that takes its time to truly educate you on the things you'll need to know. Don't do yourself a disservice by skimping on your education--that's not the kind of guy you are, right? Something tells me if you care enough about EMS to spend your free time on EMS forums, you care more about this job than the average hosemonkey. So care enough about yourself and your education to not take any shortcuts.

Edited June 15, 2012 by Bieber

[DwayneEMTP]

You know Brother, it's probably hard for you to read the responses above, but unfortunately they are correct.

Those of us that went through bonified 2 year programs barely made it through with out sanity intact. 7 months is only a decent primer.

As well, when you tell us that you need to overlap your already inadequate medical education with a fire education you've made it clear that you only want to pretend to be a medic so that you can actually be a hosemonkey.

Good luck to your Brother. I hope that you get what you want. But you shouldn't expect to be taken serious by anyone in prehospital medicine. You've taken every shortcut that you could find, and that's just really bad juju when people are trusting you to be smart instead of being lazy...

[JakeEMTP]

Bieber nailed it when he said "7 months of training". Education takes at minimum 2 years in a good college to begin to understand what it is we do. Like many others here, I obtained my AAS at an accredited educational institution. That being said, my education continues to this day.

There is a huge difference between being a paramedic and a protocol monkey. Sure we have the same patch, but that doesn't mean we are the same.

Good luck though in your choice of an inadequate training programme. Expect to do a lot of reviewing for the NR exam. Because once you have the patch, your good to go right?

Edited June 16, 2012 by JakeEMTP

[chbare]

Allow me to present somewhat of a challenge to stimulate continued and hopefully productive dialogue. How long should paramedic school be? Can those of you arguing for a minimum two year programme explain why two years is the threshold? Is there something special about two years and can we quantitatively say a two year threshold is the optimum curriculum? Why not four, six or eight years? Also, much of what we do is a behaviouralisic response to a certain stimulus. I would say knowing and learning when to perform the proper response is a difficult part of medicine and a lifelong process. However, what evidence do we have that one specific curriculum is better than another?

Mind you I am not arguing against longer programmes, but rather I am struggling as an educator to find a way of equating education to outcomes. The evidence I've seen is not as clear as I'd like and not specific to EMS. There have been studies that suggest four year nurses are associated with better outcomes than two year nurses with many other variables that make conclusions murky. Additionally, there has been an aggressive campaign that includes literature suggesting providers with significantly less education have similar outcomes to physicians. Again, pretty murky.