New Precepting Program

[J306]

Some suggestions I could add, that I ponder quite frequently, are in regards to the practical evaluation which I believe shouldn't be given as mark or percentage. The evaluation should instead focus on whether learning took place in the reflection after the scenario. This creates a proactive and positive learning environment and takes away from a lot of the communication and learning barriers experienced so frequently in EMS education.

Another concept I've become quite facinated with is called the "pygmalion effect" which I think all preceptors should have knowledge of as it gives credence to the positive and encouraging preceptors who always seem to produce the best trainee's.

[croaker260]

I don't have a very long winded or super fantastic idea, but why not have 2 seperate fto's evaluate the candidate at the same time on the same day without communicating with one another about the evaluation. Therefore if the evaluation is similar you know it was reasonable and lacked prejudice.

For the scond part of your post, I would say most agencies i've ever worked for have had some sort of variation of the state exam before, during, or after precepting. The other thing most agencies do is they have a checklist of skills and duties they must preform while precepting before they can move on. This is verified by their FTO's. The agency I'm currently working for made you do these things and do a shift with the director of operations and another with the CEO. This felt like overkill but it was not without its merits, they get to really know how their employees work and what they can expect, and can easily decide if you need more training time or not.

Interesting idea. And not without its merits, but an expensive and time consuming one. When I was my agencies reserve coordinator, I had to justify the expenditures for the extra pay for the FTO/Mentors for the return result. By using two FTO's you double the expenditure in the shift deferential but more than double the cost of the shift by tying up two experienced FTO's for a single trainee for a 12 or 24 hour period. (throughout most of the Phase II (training period) the trainee works on a two man crew with a an FTO. This is representative of our typical response configuration.

You do a three man crew with senior FTO's that over even a two week period the costs mount up exponentially.

Now in a volunteer organization, where salary is not a concern, this may be more feasible than in a larger paid organization.

What we do do for our phase III is pair the new medic trainee with an EMT. Our FTO's will dress in presentable attire that while it clearly identifies the FTO as a member of our organization, sets him apart (think business casual) from a normal responder. We then observe the Trainee functioning with an EMT just like he would on any call once he is cleared, with instructions he cannot use the FTO as a resource except in the most dire situations. This gives a very good evaluation of how they can function.

One other thing we have done is pair two trainees to one FTO. We only did this with our strongest FTO's , but even this can be problematic monitoring both simultaneously on a really bad scene. After all as an FTO you are held responsible for all their actions. We will still do this,due to logistic/schedual issues, but we try to avoid it. Most cases it was done during some of our larger academy or paramedic class graduations.... when the number of trainees outstripped the number of FTO's.