Advice..

Ridryder911 said:
It is NOT your primary role to listen to lung sounds or perform the assessment on a true life threatening illness or injury if there is someone else capable. Yes, the EMT should be able to hone their skills with more clinical experience and the ability to care for those not requiring in-depth care. One cannot gain clinical experience, by just driving.
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True; but I still don't think it's a bad idea to let an EMT-B take a complete set of vitals, if the alternative is to hook up a pt. to automatic BP cuff and that's it.
 
Foxbat said:
True; but I still don't think it's a bad idea to let an EMT-B take a complete set of vitals, if the alternative is to hook up a pt. to automatic BP cuff and that's it.
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True, as base line vitals should always be obtained by manual means first. There is too much discrepancy between artifact/movement, etc from machines.

It is not that EMT's should never assess as this is a great learning tool but on those in serious condition the determination should be made by the one that is the highest provider.

Remember, auscultating lung sounds is NOT within the scope of the Basic EMT curriculum albeit that it is usually taught in the majority of the programs.

R/r 911
 
I have been doing all of the vital signs. I've been pretty much doing everything with no emphasis from my preceptors on delegation. It seems like they just sit back and watch me and when I ask them for something they just say 'okay, you can do that too' or something. So yeah, I get that I should be able to take a set of vitals and talk to the patient and interpret what they're saying and formulate a treatment/transport plan, but I've only been doing this for 15 days now. I don't have the ability to do all of that all at once. So when I get a little flustered, they see it as weakness, not as inexperience. I don't know. That's just me.

My biggest concern now is that I'll have to wait another 2-3 months to get in to do another practicum as the school doesn't have them lined up right away and I'll lose all confidence I've gained over the past month. Or I'll get a preceptor with completely different expectations and be unprepared once again. Maybe I'm just over-thinking everything and need to relax a bit.
 
andyrad said:
I have been doing all of the vital signs. I've been pretty much doing everything with no emphasis from my preceptors on delegation. It seems like they just sit back and watch me and when I ask them for something they just say 'okay, you can do that too' or something. So yeah, I get that I should be able to take a set of vitals and talk to the patient and interpret what they're saying and formulate a treatment/transport plan, but I've only been doing this for 15 days now. I don't have the ability to do all of that all at once. So when I get a little flustered, they see it as weakness, not as inexperience. I don't know. That's just me.

My biggest concern now is that I'll have to wait another 2-3 months to get in to do another practicum as the school doesn't have them lined up right away and I'll lose all confidence I've gained over the past month. Or I'll get a preceptor with completely different expectations and be unprepared once again. Maybe I'm just over-thinking everything and need to relax a bit.
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It sounds like you are a bit sensitive criticism. Just relax, you'll get it. Everyone feels like a doofus as a trainee. And it's very possible that once you get the basic routine down, they'll let you run the BLS patients.

That's what we do in our service anyway, when you have one basic and one medic. Medics handle any ALS cases, BLS handles the BLS cases. If all you get are BLS cases, most of the time the medics will be kind enough to take one or two off your hands so you aren't doing all the work that day.
 
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