EMT-B Capstone?

So I just got my schedule from my high school, and in addition to my EMT and firefighting courses, I have a 'Public Safety Capstone'. I imagine this is something to do with research, and if that's the case, I was wondering what topics would be good to pursue.

I don't want to do something about EMT education (the only projects I've found on the web), I would like to do something that actually has to do with skills performed or research the best treatment for a certain condition.

I have all school year to do this, but I am pretty clueless at this point on what I would like to research, so I appreciate any help!

Find a condition with different treatment options and research which has stronger evidence, or if outcomes are different between two populations.

Sneak onto a computer in the hospitol and use up-to-date or PubMed to get some references then go to the library to download articles.

Is your topic in EM or public safety?

Either or, but I'd rather do EM.

What about cardiac arrest survival rates comaparing various ALS and BLS interventions, or EMS response times.

Independent predictors of septic shock ie. HR, RR, temp, aloc etc.

I would be interested in stroke alert and stemi alert statistics, basically how good are we at predicting an event based on prehispital assessment. An understanding of the statistical concepts of "sensitivity" and "specificity" would be important here.

If Mthom is in high school then perhaps those are topics which are outside the scope of the curriculum.

Typically, Capstone projects can be research based or practical application based.

One approachable Capstone project, that would involve both research and practical application, would be to pick a common Protocol in use at an area agency and find what Level of Evidence exists for it. Optional: make suggestions based on the available evidence.

This would demonstrate competencies in:
1. Protocol design
2. How to finding available research.
3. What are research "methods".
4. How to evaluate available research.

If you have a capstone adviser unfamiliar with research methods, this will likely be very difficult to accomplish on your own. However, if you're able to accomplish this capstone project, you'll be a cut above the rest!

A more practical Capstone project could be to identify a procedure that is in the EMT scope, but rarely utilized, and design a training program around its usage.

This would demonstrate competencies in:
1. The procedure at hand.
2. Finding evidence for the procedure at hand.
3. Evaluating indications and contraindications.
4. Creating a training presentation for providers.