Should EMS training include remedial English?

[mycrofft]

Judging by run reports I have read, supervisors I have heard, legal courts needing witnesses to interpret documentation, and what we see often here (usually people with few posts), I am beginning to think that, like collegiate education, EMS training needs to have a basic course in English...not just usage, but also vocabulary.

What do you think? Do you have co-workers who have seemingly never read a book, or only type with their thumbs? Do you wish you had more education in that area?

 

[ArcticKat]

I had my partner once ask me how to spell Alzheimers. I gave him O-L-D-T-I-M-E-R-S. He wrote it down, then looked at me and said, "That don't look right."

 

[medic1829]

I think that would be very helpful

 

[abckidsmom]

Ideally, it would be college-level composition and literature.

 

[dstevens58]

Vocabulary and also might throw in a spelling test or two.

 

[Chief Complaint]

People should have already taken English courses in high school or college. If they have been unable to grasp the language by now its likely not going to happen if they take a remedial English class.

Some people will just have to continue to earn a little less respect from me.

 

[fast65]

It should be required, as evidenced by the posts you see here from time to time, and from the PCR's I'm currently reviewing for our QA/QI. English seems to be a second language anymore, people just stopped caring about their written work, and fail to understand that a poorly written report reflects a lower level of professionalism upon them.

 

[AlphaButch]

One of our most effective hiring criteria where I am is an essay question given with the job application.

The content is almost irrelevent. We look at legibility and composition. We'll be moving to an associate degree minimum (even for EMT-Bs) soon. Hopefully, basic english composition is still required in schools when we do.

 

[medic417]

Na is no neded et al. Ezimucation ez ovr ratted.

 

[ArcticKat]

One of our most effective hiring criteria where I am is an essay question given with the job application.

Yup, I've got a "Describe yourself in 50 words or less." Essay question on my application forms. http://www.kelvingtonmhs.ca/public-education/_docs/application-for-employment.doc

I also have a knowledge review that includes an essay question. I don't care what the answers are, I'm looking at composition.

 

[FourLoko]

I haven't had the opportunity to read any reports other than my own but I'm confident I'd be very scared.

Then again, many a college student can't even write properly so expecting an EMT to is way too much to ask.

We have at least a couple guys who have the penmanship of a 5th grader. Hardly legible. No idea what the content is like.

 

[fast65]

I haven't had the opportunity to read any reports other than my own but I'm confident I'd be very scared.

Then again, many a college student can't even write properly so expecting an EMT to is way too much to ask.

We have at least a couple guys who have the penmanship of a 5th grader. Hardly legible. No idea what the content is like.

Completely disagree. If someone wants to have the responsibility of taking care of people, they damn well better be able to articulate their care properly in a report.

 

[DrParasite]

We look at legibility and composition.

then I would have never gotten a job. I was consistently on our billing lady's hit list and in her cross hairs for charts that she couldn't read, but when asked about it, I was able to. Thankfully we went to electronic charting, and I no longer have that problem. Plus it's really hard to write legibly in the back of a moving ambulance when the roads are more potholes than actual pavement.

EMS training should NOT include remedial English. If you need to be remediated, than you don't belong in an EMT course.

wait until the lawsuit is filed from someone who doesn't speak english, or whose primary language is not english, and claims it's discrimination that the course isn't taught in other languages.

 

[mycrofft]

Giving the wheel a spin

California's universities and even community colleges are complaining about having to waste their resources to re-teach people basic writing skills like organization, outlining, punctuation, paragraphs.
Forget about having read near enough to get a sense of the language.

 

[Sasha]

then I would have never gotten a job. I was consistently on our billing lady's hit list and in her cross hairs for charts that she couldn't read, but when asked about it, I was able to. Thankfully we went to electronic charting, and I no longer have that problem. Plus it's really hard to write legibly in the back of a moving ambulance when the roads are more potholes than actual pavement.

EMS training should NOT include remedial English. If you need to be remediated, than you don't belong in an EMT course.

wait until the lawsuit is filed from someone who doesn't speak english, or whose primary language is not english, and claims it's discrimination that the course isn't taught in other languages.

I somehow manage to write fine and legible in the back of a moving ambulance. Sometimes I have to wait a moment (brick roads for instance) but that shouldn't be an excuse to write chicken scratch reports.

I'm sorry but I have a hard time understanding why an illegible report would ever be okay. Worst comes to worst rewrite them at the end of shift at the station and staple them together.

Sent from LuLu using Tapatalk

 

[lawndartcatcher]

EMS training should NOT include remedial English. If you need to be remediated, than you don't belong in an EMT course.

This. Where are you going to cram remedial English in? Add more hours? Drop the Cardiac Emergencies module? And what about folks who can't do basic math but who want to be paramedics? Do you hold the other students back?

I've had several students who didn't have English as their first language, and the majority of them did fine (the United States is one of the few developed countries where it's not usual to speak at least two languages). I have also had several students that had English as their first language and were not able to pass the basic EMT class because of their (lack of) reading and comprehension skills.

I'm of the opinion that you should have certain prerequisite skills prior to starting any course of study. You wouldn't take an Orgo chemistry class if you hadn't taken Chem 101 first, would you? I'm not saying we should exclude folks who have substandard English skills; I'm just saying that we should ensure those skills are at a useable level BEFORE they start EMT (or, for that matter, Paramedic) training.

 

[mycrofft]

Not targeted at NES folks (Non-English speaking)

Unless you count Ebonics, ValleyGirl-Speak, or Twitter codes as "NES". I have great respect for folks speaking English as a second language and frank admiration for multiglots; I'm thinking about our native sons and daughter who have vocabularies under 10,000 words, use about 500, and whose thought organization when passing on information is so "limp" as to cause troubles further on, or the need to go back and parse everything they say.

 

[systemet]

This. Where are you going to cram remedial English in? Add more hours? Drop the Cardiac Emergencies module?

This is one option. I think most people would be opposed to dropping "cardiac emergencies" to make space for "remedial English". Other options would include:

* Requiring a basic English course prior to admission to the program
* Extending the program length, to allow remedial English to be included without dropping other content.

It's fallacious to suggest that we can either have "remedial English" or "cardiac emergencies", and that by having one we have to exclude the other.

And what about folks who can't do basic math but who want to be paramedics?

I think we have to test and identify these people. Then we have to offer remediation to those who fail to meet a basic standard, and make successful completion of that training a requirement to receive a diploma / degree / certificate.

We just have to be very careful as to where we choose to set that level of competency. For example, should someone dyslexic be permitted to have questions given verbally, or use a calculator? Are the mathematics questions we're going to ask appropriate to the (very simple) level of math necessary for carrying out the job requirements of a paramedic?

Do you hold the other students back?

Good question. It comes down to whether you want to set a English (or in the second example, Math) course as a prerequisite. If you decide you're going to offer a remedial English course during your training, then I think you have to require everyone to take it. I guess you could have a hybrid approach where you could receive credit for the course if you have a university degree (not necessarily a guarantee of English fluency), or have completed a similar course previously.

I don't think anyone is going to suggest that if 3 students out of 20 can't meet the standard that we should make the other 17 students wait to go on practicum until the others have caught up.

As an aside, at my paramedic program, participants had to have a high school diploma, including a biology course, and meet a minimum average (although this wasn't that high). We had a basic English course, that focused on common misspellings and grammatical mistakes. I think it helped.

I'm of the opinion that you should have certain prerequisite skills prior to starting any course of study. You wouldn't take an Orgo chemistry class if you hadn't taken Chem 101 first, would you? I'm not saying we should exclude folks who have substandard English skills; I'm just saying that we should ensure those skills are at a useable level BEFORE they start EMT (or, for that matter, Paramedic) training.

I think this is a pretty reasonable stance. Unfortunately a lot of training programs are "for profit", and have to market themselves to the students. In some places a program that extends its length or requires additional prerequisites will put themselves at a competitive disadvantage.

I think this is probably an argument towards having EMS training delivered by publically funded entities, e.g. technical colleges and universities.

I just want to add that I think it would be easy to do organic chemistry without having first year general chemistry. I know a bunch of programs where you take both in parallel. There's not that much crossover, as I remember it.

 

[ArcticKat]

In my training we had reading and comprehension evaluations done. If anyone was found lacking they were required to take remedial training to catch up to the rest.

 

[firetender]

The essence of the job is communication

Were we a real profession, EMS learning would occur in settings where your graduation is dependent on your ability to communicate (more than) adequately by word AND print.