"What every EMT should be required to experience before they graduate".

[mycrofft]

1. Spend one class fastened on a spineboard. Or at least 30 minutes.
2. Undergo a rapid eval, wearing a swimsuit under some clothes which can be cut. The team at the end of the semester who found the hidden injury fastest wins a very good prize, enough to get them fired up during the eval. It ought to be just your underwear and wearing your normal everyday clothes, but we can't have everything.
3. Lay down, be spineboarded and be transported code three across town in an ambulance. Put some rocks under your back to help simulate injures.

Any other such??? Hx taking? Exrication? EMT's speaking a foreign language? Blindfolded, earplugged or not allowed to speak (mute)?

 

[Summit]

How about some sleep deprivation, puke, and poo poo?

 

[JPINFV]

1. History and physical exam with standardized patients. (I'm probably sounding like a broken record at this point, but yea... standardized patients rock!).

2. A visit or two to a cadaver lab, even if it's just prosections being looked at.

 

[Seaglass]

Difficult patients. When I volunteer as a patient for courses approaching graduation, the instructors often ask us to be difficult. That can mean terrified, combative, uncommunicative, giving a rare medical history that'll fill up that tape on your thigh, or whatever... if we've had a real patient do it to us, it's fair game. Within reasonable limits for safety and all, of course. The difference between the graduates from this program and the graduates from mine, which always had easy scenario patients, is notable.

I also tend to think everyone should experience NPA administration before doing it to someone else, but that might be a bit extreme...

 

[mycrofft]

Extra credit for NPA!!

In my heyday as a simulated victim, it used to take five people to hold me down. I have also assumed a glazed look and wandered away from triage areas.

 

[firecoins]

spend a day dealing with psych patients.

do 10 rotations on the ambulance and 10 in the ER. Not the 1 and 1 we have now.

EVOC should be done as a part of the class.

 

[Seaglass]

In my heyday as a simulated victim, it used to take five people to hold me down. I have also assumed a glazed look and wandered away from triage areas.

I'll see your altered mental and raise you altered mental who only speaks another language. I research and memorize new phrases and words just for MCI drills. Next time around, I'm calling a Trekkie friend and larnin' me some Klingon... they keep digging up someone who speaks my language.

Never had to be held down, but I did once slap a patient. The patient I was playing was a conservative Muslim without much English. While the first student was doing his thing quite nicely, his partner all of a sudden decides he's had enough with just taking clipboard notes. So he creeps up behind me and tries to shove a steth under my scarf and shift. I shriek and smack his hand. Student looks bewildered and says I can't do that. Instructor, after recovering from laughing fit, tells him he can expect a lot worse if he ever really does that.

My favorite other volunteer patients tricks are asking about filing a lawsuit, and carrying concealed weapons. Haven't gotten to do the latter yet.

 

[amberdt03]

spend a day dealing with psych patients.

do 10 rotations on the ambulance and 10 in the ER. Not the 1 and 1 we have now.

EVOC should be done as a part of the class.

really? i had to do 2 rotations in the ambulance and 4 in the er. although its not like i did much anyways.....had some very slow shifts.

i don't think evoc should be part of an emt class, as it should be taught when you get hired at a company.

 

[medichopeful]

spend a day dealing with psych patients.

do 10 rotations on the ambulance and 10 in the ER. Not the 1 and 1 we have now.

EVOC should be done as a part of the class.

I agree with all of this, but EVOC had better be an add on. We don't have enough class time as it is...

 

[medichopeful]

1. Spend one class fastened on a spineboard. Or at least 30 minutes.
2. Undergo a rapid eval, wearing a swimsuit under some clothes which can be cut. The team at the end of the semester who found the hidden injury fastest wins a very good prize, enough to get them fired up during the eval. It ought to be just your underwear and wearing your normal everyday clothes, but we can't have everything.
3. Lay down, be spineboarded and be transported code three across town in an ambulance. Put some rocks under your back to help simulate injures.

Any other such??? Hx taking? Exrication? EMT's speaking a foreign language? Blindfolded, earplugged or not allowed to speak (mute)?

#1: For myself, done. We practiced extrication in an auditorium, and guess who got immobilized, on both a backboard and a KED? I have to say, though, that it's a good experience. It's not comfortable, and it's good to know what the patient has to go through.

#2: That would be good, but I don't see it happening.

#3: We don't do that, but we are going to have to perform CPR (on a dummy) in an ambulance while it's moving in a way that is, shall we say, interesting.

 

[Sasha]

Shadow an ER nurse and then shadow a CNA.

 

[medichopeful]

In my heyday as a simulated victim, it used to take five people to hold me down. I have also assumed a glazed look and wandered away from triage areas.

Not a chance in hell would I let anybody put an NPA in me while I was conscious. I have a bad gag reflex, so the NPA would probably cause me to vomit and, subsequently, aspirate it.

 

[Sasha]

Not a chance in hell would I let anybody put an NPA in me while I was conscious. I have a bad gag reflex, so the NPA would probably cause me to vomit and, subsequently, aspirate it.

NPA, not OPA

 

[EMSLaw]

Not a chance in hell would I let anybody put an NPA in me while I was conscious. I have a bad gag reflex, so the NPA would probably cause me to vomit and, subsequently, aspirate it.

You can put an NPA in a conscious patient with an intact gag reflex. It kinda feels funny, though. You're thinking OPA? Just looking at one of those makes me want to gag.

 

[bunkie]

We've done that. Almost all of it except going code 3 in an ambulance. We dont have the resources for that around here. I've been put on a board (and hurt in the process..ouch), ventilated, done a MCI, had combative pt's. We're required to wear bathing suits under our clothing in our final practical because clothing may be cut of. (which I have a problem with but thats a subject for another day)

 

[eveningsky339]

Every EMT student should have to role-play as a dialysis patient and take part in a non-emergency transfer. The EMTs doing the transporting should have shaved heads/mowhawks, tattoos, hangovers, foul language, and should reek of cigarette smoke.

Maybe that way, the graduating students will realize what you become when you come out as an EMT-B thinking you are going to save the universe and then discover the more common side of EMS.

I've seen some pretty poor excuses for EMTs in my day, some a lot worse than the non-emergency transfer ones I proposed for students...

 

[firecoins]

I agree with all of this, but EVOC had better be an add on. We don't have enough class time as it is...

The EVOC is class time. EMT class does not teach driving but its part of the job.

 

[medichopeful]

You can put an NPA in a conscious patient with an intact gag reflex. It kinda feels funny, though. You're thinking OPA? Just looking at one of those makes me want to gag.

No, definitely thinking NPA. If one of those got anywhere near me, there'd be a mess to clean up.

I know you can put an NPA into a conscious patient, but I don't think I would be one that you could :glare:

I'm with you on the OPA. Just thinking about having one of those in makes me want to vomit. h34r:

 

[medichopeful]

The EVOC is class time. EMT class does not teach driving but its part of the job.

No, I agree that EVOC should be taught. But I think that in order for EVOC to be taught, the amount of class time needs to be increased, instead of giving something less attention.

 

[medichopeful]

NPA, not OPA

No, an NPA would do it too. I have a SERIOUS problem with gagging. It's mostly just mental, but even an NPA would probably do it h34r::glare: