Sounds like the EMT-B program
Seriously - my program is going through a lot of growing pains... we are year 4, and the biggest class, double the size of last years. Our lead instructor is now realizing that he dropped the ball a time or two and is going back over stuff.
Some of our preceptors are really good. Some of the folks who precept couldn't find their butt with two hands and a road map... one of them didn't even realize that we carry lidocane as a drip. :facepalm:
And some of our preceptors have been removed from precepting - like when they had/allowed their student to intubate a dog on a fire scene.
All in all, now that we are in Stage 2 of clinicals, the preceptors are EXPECTED to allow us and MAKE US run things, and give us enough rope to learn, but not enough rope to hurt ourselves or the patient.
I feel as if I have enough experience that I'll be adequately prepared for life once I pass my NREMT-P :hope: :Big, Obama-Style Hope: Sure, I'll be new and green, and won't know everything. But I know 20-year medics that don't know everything. That said, I worry about some of my classmates. Today we were told that as a class, we aren't allowed to push drugs anymore in the local ED, becase at least one student couldn't adequatly answer questions on why a med was being given and what it was.... and it is ON the state Medic Drug list, AND a VERY commonly pushed drug in the ED. Add that to at least 1 student being unable to preform the psychmotor skill of drawing up a drug... and the ED director has pulled the plug until we get signed off again and she's comfortable we aren't going to make errors for her nurses.... they have enough work already!
Here on clinicals we are allowed to push drugs in the ER, but they must be drawn up by the nurse, first and pushed under a nurse's supervision. One of my favorite nurses would draw up the drug, take a saline flush and inject it into the now empty drug vial, and make the student draw up the saline, to make sure the student knows how to, but you're expected to know the whys, hows, why nots, what to expect, etc if the drug is considered a "prehospital drug".
We, however, are no longer allowed to start IVs after a student who had never used a spring loaded IV needle, never thought to ask about it, just started an IV and assumed that the button to "spring" the needle back, shot the needle into the vein. Well, it doesn't, but it does make a big mess of the patient's arm, bedding, floor, etc. The patient complained, the nurse complained, and we are no longer able to start IVs in the hospital. Personally I hate the spring loaded IVs, they like to fling blood while they "spring".
My program is "new" too, but it doesn't give the program an excuse to suck so bad. I could kick myself for staying, but before I had floated around here, I thought we were doing okay. Come to realize the school is basically breeding mill medics, and that's not something I want to be. It's hard to ask questions because my instructors don't even know why or how a treatment works, just that if you have this, you give that, etc. It makes it difficult and frustrating to learn.
And yes, we have CPAP, but I kind of froze and forgot about it, and no one felt compelled to remind me.