Length and Depth of Medic Class

[Dominion]

I recently started my medic class in September and always mindful of people I respect on various forums and in services here I looked for over a year for a valuable program that I thought would be the best possible solution for me. What I stumbled upon was a program taught by a relatively new but well respected local paramedic that was backed & sponsored by the local level 1 trauma center (University of Louisville Hospital). So far I find the length and depth of the class, to me at least, extremely nice.

Our expected finish date is late 2010, we're taking some liberties not found in any other medic classes in the area by instituting mandatory extended courses that are not DOT but are to help our understanding of things such as drugs and why things work they way the do.

I was just wondering if anyone (especially rid ) has any suggestions I could pass along to my instructor. Since this is his first medic class he is very open to suggestions from seasoned instructors.

 

[VentMedic]

Got a name and/or link to your program?

 

[Dominion]

It's a terrible site, I was going to approach him about about redesign. But it does have contact information on it.

http://www.mti-ky.biz/Paramedic_Course.html

One of the other concepts I'm looking forward to is extended clinical hours we have arranged that are designed to shadow 'adult' and 'peds' doctors. The peds is especially interesting because (and I don't know the full info) the local pediatric hospital tends to not let anyone come there for clinical hours.

 

[marineman]

I'd say a wonderful first step would be getting accredited by the national registry if they aren't already.

 

[JPINFV]

The lack of pre reqs could either be a good thing or a bad thing and you can't tell without the schedule. The program is 2 years (September 2008-Aug 2010), so there is time to include A/P as a part of the course, but is it going to be a watered down "A/P for medics" style course or a college level A/P course? Ideally, though, chemistry, math, technical writing, and a whole slew of other courses outside of A/P would be required before starting.

 

[VentMedic]

How many hours per week does the class meet and what is the total number of hours promised by the program? How many classroom, lab, clinicals?

 

[Dominion]

We are meeting 12 hours one week and 6 the next (due to massive scheduling conflicts, it was supposed to be 12 a week).

The class itself is doing something I don't know if it's good or bad with A&P. We begin by doing a month of A&P covering specific topics (I'll post the topics when I get to work, it's where my schedule is). Then throughout the class we cover more, for example during cardiology we do the chapters on heart A&P and blood A&P, during respiratory we do the respiratory a&p etc etc. We cover the A&P before we get into the rest of it. If I recall correctly we are 450 hours of clinicals and 500 hours of ride time. Mandatory state clinicals + doctor shadowing in a peds and adult specific environment. Every written test we have also has a skills test that must be passed that covers all BLS skills and ALS skills and knowledge we've covered to that point. Drugs are spread over the entire course instead of trying to learn them in one little block.

Most the rest of the class is "we will do this" so I have to see if he will deliver. I personally think and hope he will, he's a pretty good guy, a fairly good teacher (everything we cover during lecture IS from the book, but it's taught in a manner that makes you think, rather than copy from a powerpoint)