I went to
Westmed College in San Jose, CA.
Registration Fee: $
100
Books: $
400
Student Tuition Recovery Fund Fee: $
32.50
Tuition: $
12,100
Total due for the entire program: $
12,632.50
Uniform(s) was not included. I cannot find a copy of my receipt for how much I paid for my uniform, and I am too lazy to look it up online, if I even can look that far back into my credit history. It was probably around a hundred dollars, but I am not sure.
The books we used:
Nancy Caroline AAOS Paramedic textbook
Dale Dubin Rapid Interpretation of EKGs.
The Streetmedic's Handbook
ACLS, PALS, and ITLS was included in the program, but you still had to pay $100 for each card.
Only requirement other than EMT with AHA CPR for Healthcare Provider was Anatomy & Physiology. Westmed has an Anatomy & Physiology class, it's 4 hours/week, and it's for about 3-4 months. It's exactly $1,000, and not covered by financial aid. I love the teacher, and do not doubt her knowledge, but the class was a joke. :[
I think the program unfairly has a poor reputation. I didn't think it was great, but a lot of the problems it has are similar problems I hear about other paramedic programs. Some of them even share the same books and same skill instructors.
One of my favorite things about the program I can recall is one paramedic from Rural/Metro Santa Clara put a ton of effort into teaching medication calculation. The packet she used is the same packet they go over at Foothill College, and we practiced doing medication calculations for weeks. Although I would argue, get mad, or disagree with an instructor, sometimes they tried to show off,
"I can do a patient assessment in 30 seconds.
Watch me.
(walks into room, move head side to side as if they are dancing)
OK, the patient is tracking me with their eyes.
Hey, my name is Bob, I'm a paramedic. What's going on?
(at the same time as talking with the patient, they'd palpate a pulse)
Boom! Boom! There, I'm done.
See how easy that was? One day you'll be as good as me."
--
"I've never done an IO because I've never missed an IV."
--
"I'm really good at getting my tube."
I liked that they were mostly nice, and they wanted to be helpful. If you asked them to come in early or stay late, they'd do it. They'd give you their phone numbers or e-mail, and you can call or e-mail them questions. If you wanted to, you could setup ride alongs with them. On this forum, I push for more education, I want paramedics to have a degree, but honestly, I :censored:ing hate school... and if my classmates and the instructors weren't as cool as they were at Westmed, I probably would've quit.
My biggest dislikes about the program was they completely failed teaching 12-lead interpretation and rapid sequence induction (RSI). I personally don't believe they know how to interpret 12-lead well because the very first day we went over cardiac, the skill instructor asked us "what do you think an atrial infarct looks like?", and I could tell he was trying to look for the answer in
Rapid Interpretation of EKGs, which the answer isn't in there. When we were suppose to go over RSI in the powerpoints from the AAOS book, the instructor said "RSI? *laughed* You'll never do that", and clicked through the powerpoint *click click click* really fast to get through the powerpoint quicker. Also the online quizzes and in class test questions were the
exact same.
