New Hire Challenges

[HunterTMars]

A question for EMS training officers and educators:

What are the biggest challenges your company encounters in preparing new EMTs and Paramedics to your system?

The gravity of the question I am asking is not lost on me. I could give you paragraphs detailing the challenges we encounter. However, if I had to distill it down to one simple issue it would be "practical application".

 

[planetmike]

Self-confidence. In-class learning is very different from a real patient. Applying things you've learned in concept is different from doing it in the real world.

 

[DrParasite]

There is the right way, the wrong way, and the way we do it here (which may not always be the right or best way). Some systems have a way of doing things, and some FTOs wants things done "their" way, which might be different than what the agency told the new hire. And there are also those FTOs who will take someone with 20 years of experience and think "well, that means nothing, because it wasn't in this system, so you must know nothing."

I've been in systems where experienced paramedics (including one training supervisor who was hired externally) weren't able to pass the credentialing process when they started a new job, and others where I question why the experienced paramedic hasn't been fired due to clinical incompetence, as well as how the newbie was ever cleared as a medic. And I know quite a few paramedics who were demoted to EMT level due to lack of being able to be cleared as a medic (again, idk if it was justified or not, just that it happened).

 

[HunterTMars]

Self-confidence. In-class learning is very different from a real patient. Applying things you've learned in concept is different from doing it in the real world.

Thank you. That is pretty much what we are seeing also.

 

[HunterTMars]

There is the right way, the wrong way, and the way we do it here (which may not always be the right or best way). Some systems have a way of doing things, and some FTOs wants things done "their" way, which might be different than what the agency told the new hire. And there are also those FTOs who will take someone with 20 years of experience and think "well, that means nothing, because it wasn't in this system, so you must know nothing."

I've been in systems where experienced paramedics (including one training supervisor who was hired externally) weren't able to pass the credentialing process when they started a new job, and others where I question why the experienced paramedic hasn't been fired due to clinical incompetence, as well as how the newbie was ever cleared as a medic. And I know quite a few paramedics who were demoted to EMT level due to lack of being able to be cleared as a medic (again, idk if it was justified or not, just that it happened).

Thank you. I think we have been guilty of the "this is how we do it" thing from time to time. I guess it's hard to decide when we should hold on to that or let it go. I'm guessing, if we truly teach it correctly we should hang on to it.

I have also seem similar performance problems to the ones you mention. The hard part for us is understanding that just because they did well in class doesn't necessarily result in that same employee doing really well in the field.