Vol. EMS service for Schools???

[brock8024]

Would having colleges with vol EMS service help with education??? I have seen some people that have their college posted and their program has ambulances that let the students work on them. I think this could help out with some education and clinical problems, if it is regulated the right way. Have each truck have 3 EMT's on it. One a hired NR EMT P and the other two from the program. One being a upper class man and the other a lower class man. Like at my school it would be a PC3 or PC4 student with a Basic student or a PC1 or PC2 student. That way the NR EMT P is there to help but the students get to teach what they have learned at the same time get to learn too. The clinical times can be increased because it is the school that is running it. I do not know if it would work or not but i have seen where some schools do this.

Does this help out students for the ones that have been to a program like this??

Do you think it is a bad thing or a good thing?

My school does not do this but from what I have seen on here it would help out I think because we have to fight hard just to get clinical sites and we get summers off and breaks and this would let students cont their education while on break. Maybe make it be required for them to do some many hours on it while on breaks or something.

like I said I have seen some places that do it and was wondering if it works and if so why more do not do it.

Thanks

Brock

[Spock]

Penn State University runs its own EMS agency out of the student health department. The have two units and staff them with 3 EMT's--two paid and one volunteer. PSU is located in State College which is a pretty rural area. The units are BLS and meet all state regulations. One unit covers the campus while the other is used for special events such as athletic events. They upgrade the service to ALS for football games and import medics from all over the state because there are not enough in the area. I've been working games for 8 years now and every game is an adventure. Beaver stadium holds around 110,000 and is the third largest city in PA on game days and I'd bet 60% of the fans are drunk by kickoff! We have around 90 people working the games including MD's, RN's, Medics, and EMT's. It's a pretty good system.

There are quite a few college EMS agencies and they have an organization that meets every year. I'm not sure of the name but if you google it I'm certain you would find it. PSU offers EMT courses for college credit and the crews earn money for school. They staff one truck 24/7 including summer. ALS comes from the local hospital by a response unit. Most of their calls are BLS and I think they run 6-700 per year. They are pretty busy in the summer covering all kinds of camps and events including the 3 day Special Olympics in June. I've worked Special Olympics for going on 10 years and enjoy it every year.

Live long and prosper.

Spock

[brock8024]

do u think this helps with the students education? I would think it would to some extent. That is what I am wondering. How much would this help. I seen on the news last night that there is 10 rual areas in oklahoma that now do not have a ambulance due to shortage of money and emt's. I figure this could help in some respect. thanks

brock

[SSG G-man]

I think it could be beneficial. Should make part of requirement to be a member that certain class must be taken, A&P, Biology, etc.

Also, could benefit student if school offered tuition assistance for members.

My $.02

Sarge

[Dustdevil]

I think that primarily, it is whackerism with no significant benefit. Its only value is as a first responder organisation. And even then, in a town big enough to have a college, EMS is going to be there pretty quickly, usually before a volunteer FR organisation can muster a squad and respond. If you are using such a squad as primary responders who then decide whether or not EMS is summoned, you're doing your patients a disservice and just looking for trouble.

And really, how often is EMS called to your campus? Do the numbers even come close to suggesting a need or feasibility?

This is definitely not "experience" for the students. It's just negligible exposure that probably won't even happen unless there are riots on your campus. So, best case scenario, one or two students end up responding to take the blood pressure of a couple people with dizziness, headache, or stomach ache during the entire program. Big deal. You're a student, not a medic. So you're not going to be performing any real procedures. And those few things you are doing (vitals, oxygen, maybe BLS CPR if you really get lucky), are simply the mundane monkey skills you should have perfected by now anyhow. So that shoots down the whole angle of it being a benefit to the students.

So, the campus doesn't need it. It provides no significant benefit to the school. And it provides no benefit to the students participating. And it is fraught with liability. Yeah.... sounds like a great idea to me. A real wankers dream.

[hfdff422]

Most services, fire departments and hospitals are already set up for and willing to allow ride time or clinical rotations for any medical school or EMS student. So there is no justification for the liability involved. Just develop a relationship with current organizations that provide the type of service you are wanting to get experience with.

[Spock]

At PSU they get experience and education while earning money. Many have gone on to become paramedics and EMS managers, nurses, and a few are physicians. One alumnus is a well known EMS attorney. They provide a valuable service to a campus of over 60,000 people. Universities have their own police departments so why not EMS? PSU EMS responds to mutual aid calls throughout the county and is the first due EMS agency for the county airport because they are the closest. Do these EMT's get the same "real world experience" found in the big city? No. They do provide a valuable service that would be a drain on the local EMS community.

It is not their fault they are BLS. The county medical director wants all ALS to be under his control so a paramedic response unit provides ALS. This makes for better EMT's because they have to treat the patient for 15 to 20 minutes before they meet up with a medic. They load and go for just about everything and meet the medic enroute.

Dust--your well recognized bias (hatred) towards EMT's is tiresome. Perhaps you need to move on.

Live long and prosper.

Spock

[Dustdevil]

EMT's is tiresome. Perhaps you need to move on.

WTF are you talking about?

I was commenting only on the proposal at hand and said nothing at all about basics. It doesn't matter to me if they are basics or CCEMT-P's. It is irrelevant to the topic we are discussing and has no bearing on my opinion.

You disappoint me with this nonsense. I thought you were an intelligent and respectable guy. Did you really fail to understand my post, or do you just have a problem with me that you aren't able to control? :?

[Spock]

QED

Live long and prosper.

Spock

[06weasel]

I think that primarily, it is whackerism with no significant benefit. Its only value is as a first responder organisation. And even then, in a town big enough to have a college, EMS is going to be there pretty quickly, usually before a volunteer FR organisation can muster a squad and respond. If you are using such a squad as primary responders who then decide whether or not EMS is summoned, you're doing your patients a disservice and just looking for trouble.

And really, how often is EMS called to your campus? Do the numbers even come close to suggesting a need or feasibility?

The topic is about volunteer EMS squads and yet you keep referring to a theoretical situation in which the volunteers are summoning "EMS" or not making scene before "EMS"...

The point is, the volunteer squads ARE the EMS, whether or not you want to admit that. They have the same certs as anyone else who wears the patch. You're talking about them like they're some people who are waiting for the "real" EMS to show up.

As Spock said you don't have a great track record for respecting volunteers, or even specifically college EMS (as I found out). I don't mean to disrespect your experience, because yes you have a lot more than most people around here, but try doing something positive for once instead of ripping on every volunteer, every kid who goes to college and is in EMS. Seriously, I've seen you give good, positive advice before and I for one would like to see more of it.

As for the situation with PSU it's a lot different from many other places as I understand. They do run their own ambulance squad (not QRS, ambulances). PSU is like a self-contained city, so it's pretty feasible for them to have their own emergency services, they do everything else.

College EMS? Great idea in theory, but in practice...not many colleges can afford to run an actual ambulance, and yeah basically you get to pick up drunks. You'd get more real experience running with an actual dept. in the city the college is in. I'd agree with Dust there it's pretty pointless...no experience, and actually if you just ran college EMS for 4 years you'd forget how to handle most everything (geriatrics, pediatrics, almost any medical condition other than being drunk).

(See Dust, I'm not totally stupid)