# Question about practicals



## Chrissy88 (Dec 29, 2009)

I don't know if the rules for the VA state exam practicals differ from the NREMT or other states...

But aren't you allowed to backtrack if you accidentally forget a step and later verbalize it within the 10 minute time span? 

I passed everything but the Medical station because I didn't say a step in order. I accidentally administered the medication before contacting medical control. As soon as I administered it, I quickly said that I forgot to contact medical control and then I verbalized everything, but he told me that you're not allowed to backtrack. Is that correct? Because I remember my instructor telling me that we were allowed too as long as we say everything within the length of time given. :glare:


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## Shishkabob (Dec 29, 2009)

If it's an NR state, it follows NR rules.

If you forgot something major, such as not asking about allergies before giving meds, then you're screwed.


If you were told you have to contact med control before giving a drug, and you didn't, you're SOL.  I never had to contact med control for any of my drugs... and my medical scenario was an MI where I gave nitro.


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## Achromatic (Dec 30, 2009)

Chrissy88 said:


> As soon as I administered it, I quickly said that I forgot to contact medical control and then I verbalized everything, but he told me that you're not allowed to backtrack. Is that correct? Because I remember my instructor telling me that we were allowed too as long as we say everything within the length of time given. :glare:



I would have to agree with Linuss below - it's good that you knew that you'd forgotten it, and in most places, with most meds, you'll have standing orders, but gotta take issue with your instructor's remarks - there's at least a general order for things for a reason. Administering ASA and then saying "Oh, btw, do you have any allergies?" "Yeah, ibuprofen..." is not a good thing. The purpose of the practical isn't testing your knowledge per se, that's the writtens, the practicals are "putting it into practice in a real world situation".

Better luck next time, at least you know what you need to do.


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## EMSLaw (Dec 30, 2009)

If that was the only issue, don't you get remediated and repeat that station again the same day?

That's the way it is here.  Sorry, know everyplace is different.


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## juxtin1987 (Dec 30, 2009)

EMSLaw said:


> If that was the only issue, don't you get remediated and repeat that station again the same day?
> 
> That's the way it is here.  Sorry, know everyplace is different.



That's the way our class was as well, however there are some Critical fails that you just cannot mess up, this may have been one of them as it is a very important step of a basic administering meds.


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## Chrissy88 (Jan 1, 2010)

Thanks y'all for the replies, it was a pretty important thing to get forget, so I guess I can understand being failed for it *Sighs*

It would be really nice if I was able to retake it on the same day, but we were not told whether we passed or failed until two weeks later.


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## EMTinNEPA (Jan 1, 2010)

Pre-face: I'm a huge advocate of educating for the real world, not teaching for the test.

Once you give a medication, you can't get it back.  It's in and all its effects are going to occur.  If I were your evaluator, I would have had the patient experience an adverse reaction and made you try to justify your actions to medical control or the paramedic, because that's what could happen in the real world.

Now, I'm not familiar with the way your state does things, but when I took my EMT-B exam, you went through the scenario and at the end, the evaluator would ask you if there was anything you would have done differently.  If it was something like "I would have placed them on supplemental oxygen before taking vital signs", they'd usually let you off.  But if it was "Oops, I forgot to hold c-spine on the patient that got ejected from their car", no dice.

Consult your instructor, and if necessary contact the EMS office.


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## Chrissy88 (Jan 1, 2010)

EMTinNEPA said:


> Pre-face: I'm a huge advocate of educating for the real world, not teaching for the test.
> 
> Once you give a medication, you can't get it back.  It's in and all its effects are going to occur.  If I were your evaluator, I would have had the patient experience an adverse reaction and made you try to justify your actions to medical control or the paramedic, because that's what could happen in the real world.
> 
> ...



Thanks for your response and you're right.
Initially I was under the impression that for testing purposes we were allowed to backtrack and verbalize if we accidentally forgot something as long as we didn't go over our 10 minutes. So I was a little taken back when the evaluator who was also one of our assistant instructors in the class said that I was not allowed to do this. But eh! que sera sera I guess. 
I'm going to contact my University and just take the retest on the 6th.


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