Anyone that think school is way different, never understands that one applies what they learn in school and place it in action. If one thinks school is way different, either had a piss poor program or does not know how to take comprehensive knowledge and place that into a clinical perspective.
Spot on. The only difference between the classroom and the field is the environment. Medicine is medicine, no matter where you practice it. The principles do not change. I agree 100 percent with Rid (the only other educated paramedic educator on the forum that I am aware of, besides Vent), that if your medicine is different in the field than it was in classroom or clinicals, then either your school sucks, or you are on the road to FAIL. Do not let all the blowhards out there BS you with that worn out line. It will hurt your professional development.
I ... started doing my ALS classes. I sat there, wondering what "vagal maneuvers" were and why I was the only BLS in the class that didn't know.
I took a few months off, got released to operate as BLS, and restarted medic school. Hopefully, I'll be better off for it.
I'm not sure I am getting you, Papa. You thought you weren't ready for paramedic school because you did not already know the information they were trying to teach you? WTF? Teaching you what that information is about is what paramedic education is all about! You're not getting the point that Rid and I are putting forth here. It is better for you and your educational development if you do NOT know that stuff before beginning paramedic education! True, competent educators want a blank slate. We do not want to have to spend valuable educational time trying to overwrite the bad information that is already scribbled into your brain by working with lazy and undereducated medics who take shortcuts or believe that the field is different from the classroom. Those instructors and those medics -- no matter how good they are in the field -- know zero about the concepts of adult education, and what it takes to make you the best medic that you can be. And most of the people out there spouting this nonsense about getting street experience before medic school are doing so for one of two reasons:
1. They are ignorant, and all they know is what they have been told by others. It's the old "this is the way we've always done it" argument with absolutely no basis in sound educational theory.
2. They simply don't want to see anyone get there faster than they did or do. EMS people are an insecure lot, always measuring their progress against others. If they have screwed around driving a transfer ambulance for three years, then they want you to do that too. They can't stand the fact that someone actually had the time, funds, intelligence, and professional commitment to do it faster than they did.
Neither of those are valid reasons to establish policy. This is EMS, where our policies should be evidence based. And the evidence suggests -- and is validated by every other medical profession -- that straight through is the way to go. Think about it. We are not so special that some different rules of education apply to us than to every other medical profession, are we? Of course not.
Other than preconceptions from the above two reasons, the other reasons that people say they don't like "zero to hero" medics are because:
1. They simply don't want to like them, for reasons above, and lack the ability to objectively measure their competency. They will find or manufacture any reason to criticize them, regardless of validity.
2. They are measuring them by unreasonable standards. The medic can be the best diagnostician since Dr. House, but these people will call them losers because they didn't know some trick about spider straps that they knew from experience. Education trumps experience in medicine. Experience without the foundation of education is dangerous. But yes, everyone needs experience, and the more of it, the better. But you cannot judge a brand new, unexperienced medic based on the expectations you hold for someone with experience, even as an EMT. To judge them fairly, you have to compare apples to apples. That means that you can't have any more expectations for a fresh medic than you would for a fresh EMT. Both lack experience. A valid comparison would be a "zero to hero" medic with a year in the field post graduate, to a brand new paramedic graduate with a year as an EMT. Now think about it, which would YOU rather be? A new medic, with a year's experience as an EMT? Or a medic with a year's experience as a medic? That's a no-brainer there.
3. They simply do not see very many straight-through medics to judge, because either the culture or the school requirements in their area prevent such medics from being produced in their area.
Again, none of those standards are a valid means of judging the quality of a provider. This old, outdated, and invalidated belief that one should get field experience as an EMT to make him a better medic is just another of those ingrained fallacies that is holding EMS education back in the 1970s. It really has to change. And in the better educational systems, where truly professional educators (not just "instructors") like Rid run the show, it is changing. I just hope I live to see the day that everyone else gets a clue.
This don't happen often.)