Medic Students!!!

We spent probably the most time on EKG's and the least amount of time on Pharmacology, so I find myself buying MORE pharma books than EKG. I have my Dale Dubins which I bought prior to entering Paramedic school, then an EKG book that is 95% strips, a couple hundred pages of em.

But we've done probably thousands and thousands of strips in class, but haven't spent as much time on pharma, we're taught the material but it wasn't pounded into our heads like cardiology was.
 
2 to 3 max, as of right now.


That's all that any of the previous material has required, and I have the highest grade in the class... soo..... until I get to a section that requires more attention *cough* cardiac starting next week *cough*
 
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I am currently as of today 2 weeks and one final exam away from being done with medic class. I have one month worth of clinicals and I am ready to test out. It's a good thing too cuz I am freakin tired of spending 14 hours a week sitting in a freakin class room.
 
irish_handgrenade said:
I am currently as of today 2 weeks and one final exam away from being done with medic class. I have one month worth of clinicals and I am ready to test out. It's a good thing too cuz I am freakin tired of spending 14 hours a week sitting in a freakin class room.
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Woohoo. Good luck.
 
irish_handgrenade said:
I am currently as of today 2 weeks and one final exam away from being done with medic class. I have one month worth of clinicals and I am ready to test out. It's a good thing too cuz I am freakin tired of spending 14 hours a week sitting in a freakin class room.
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I am currently a week and a half away from being done and one final. I feel your excitement!!
 
HotelCo said:
Question.

How many hours per week do you study?
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I study between 2-4 hours depending on the material and what I run into. I find myself sometimes reading a section we have to be prepared for and running into concepts I don't know, so I go and learn about those concepts too. I studied the most for cardiology, which was close to a month and a half of class or something like that. Like I said before, my biggest crutch is pharmacology, because it wasn't thrown on us all at once, I wasn't forced to cram so I've been learning about it slowly as we progress through class. Hopefully by the time we're done I'll be solid in it.

We have class on a rotating schedule so one week we have 6 hours, the next week is 12 hours.


Any advice for pharmacology? I know kinda study methods that works for me but more about what I should focus on and what is less important to focus on. Like something to form a foundation on so I could come back at a later date and focus on the rest.
 
The way I've been studying pharmacology is, of course, making the cards. Every so often I'll look at my drug book. I try to remember 1 dosage each time I study the drugs.


The drugs and the indications were the easy part. The dosages and the contraindications are the hard parts.
 
To be honest, I'm going to have to learn how to sit down and read and study again.


I never studied and never read read the EMT book. But I'm different when it comes to learning
 
Heres my question for any students


When in class, do you type your notes or do you write em down?
 
I'm crazy, I've never taken notes. Not in Hs, College, basic, or paramedic class. I highlight prior to class. About the most notes I take is a concept that I want to study more in depth.
 
I usually rarely ever take notes in normal classes, but am taking Medic seriously.


I've already filled up 1 notebook in the 11 weeks we've been in. Dedicating one solely to cardiology that we're starting on Monday.





I hand write, and if I need to study some more, I re-type them on my computer when I get home.
 
OK here is another question

When it comes to IV's, how do you practice? On yourself? Each other?


How about when it comes to national testing time? Who gets to be the dummy? Or is there not anybody? Just explain what you do?
 
Hockey said:
OK here is another question

When it comes to IV's, how do you practice? On yourself? Each other?


How about when it comes to national testing time? Who gets to be the dummy? Or is there not anybody? Just explain what you do?
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In my class we have several options available to us.

  1. We have really nice synthetic arms with most of the surface vessels and it simulates a patient with a book normal BP. So you'll get flash etc. Really cool but can't use anything bigger than a 20 or it starts to screw up the arm.
  2. A crappy arm but we can use the big guys on it.
  3. Each other. The rule is, if you want to stick you must be willing to be stuck. Or rather if we practice then whoever I want to stick gets to stick me.
  4. We also have an EJ/Femoral dummy for practice.

Getting stuck sucks, no one in my class is good and I'm a tough stick so I usually get tortured a little bit.
 
Hockey said:
OK here is another question

When it comes to IV's, how do you practice? On yourself? Each other?


How about when it comes to national testing time? Who gets to be the dummy? Or is there not anybody? Just explain what you do?
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Most institutions have IV practice arms to learn upon. These can range from poor quality to really difficult sticks, as the majority of educational facilities have banned live IV sticks due to the risk and dangers as well as litigation's.

I know of no school in my area that allows IV sticks on students any longer this is a far contrast where we were required to place NG tubes on each other. The students are placed into clinical area such as pre-op for surgery, ED, etc.. where exposure and great number of IV's are needed to gain experience.

On the NREMT the candidate will have to successfully cannulate IV on a IV arm and adjust the rate, as well as some state require I/O for pediatrics and adults now.
R/r 911
 
We stuck eachother.

Sticking eachother is how I earned the nickname of La Magra AKA The Blood God.
 
We stuck eachother, as the way it should be, for several reasons.

One--- sticking a fake arm is nothing like sticking a human, and if a real live pt was your first stick... I feel bad for the Pt. There is one guy in my class who shakes while trying to do a stick.

Two--- As my instrcutor says, this way if you've never gotten an IV before class, you'll know exactly what the pt is going through. No lying, no "It's only a little poke"



We do have the fake arms, which are nice for technique, but nothing replaces a human.








Having said that, I HATE BEING POKED.
 
Hockey,

Go to NREMT.org got to "resources" then click on "practical exam information". Print off the skill sheets as a guide to help you study! These are the sheets exam proctors use.

The skills that use live patients are the truama assessment and bleed control/ seated/back boarding stations. The rest are on dummy's and or verbal.
 
In the class I'm in, we'll be doing live sticks. Thankfully, we will be doing practice on dummy arms for awhile first. A few of us have experience sticking folks (military or EMT-I) and we've been assured that we will be getting stuck by the classmates that have the shakiest hands. Our instructor loves to torment us once in awhile.
 
Linuss said:
We stuck eachother, as the way it should be, for several reasons.

One--- sticking a fake arm is nothing like sticking a human, and if a real live pt was your first stick... I feel bad for the Pt. There is one guy in my class who shakes while trying to do a stick.

Two--- As my instrcutor says, this way if you've never gotten an IV before class, you'll know exactly what the pt is going through. No lying, no "It's only a little poke"



We do have the fake arms, which are nice for technique, but nothing replaces a human.
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We use fake arms here. I've never had a patient complain. Although, that could have been from knowing what works and what doesn't, due to the hundreds of times I was stuck as a kid. lol

If my class were to allow us to practice on eachother, I wouldn't do it. Sorry, I don't want any of my classmates sticking me, nor do I care to stick them.
 
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