Should nurses be required to complete ride alongs with FD

Wow, completely forgot I posted this. If anyone is still reading this (doubt it) my reasoning was not so much for the nurses to learn anything, it was just to get them to know the difference and maybe have a different kind of appreciation. Medics and EMTs have to do shifts in the ER and we're not really learning anything new in there.

As far as the FD comments are concerned, down here, 911 ambulance service is ran by FD so 90% of firefighters are also medics.
 
SFLfire said:
Medics and EMTs have to do shifts in the ER and we're not really learning anything new in there.
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That just means you're doing it wrong. Depends on the staff at the ED to some extent, but I got a lot out of my ED clinicals and times shadowing ED docs.
 
chaz90 said:
That just means you're doing it wrong. Depends on the staff at the ED to some extent, but I got a lot out of my ED clinicals and times shadowing ED docs.
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Not sure. I only did one clinical. Maybe when I get to medic school and do more of them, I'll learn something.
 
I think EMS ride-alongs are a great idea for ED nurse orientations and maybe for CHRNs.
I think CCT ride-alongs are a great idea for ICU nurse orientations.
For the other 95% of nurses, it is not time well spent (and there wouldn't be enough available EMS shifts as there are roughly 13+ RNs for every EMT/Medic in the US).
 
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Summit said:
I think CCT ride-alongs are a great idea for ICU nurse orientations.
For the other 95% of nurses, it is not time well spent
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It would not be time well spent for most ICU nurses, either.
 
I see a lot of people saying its pointless for most nursing students to have ride times so let me ask this. Isn't it pretty pointless for emt students to have clinicals? Again, what are we learning? Not a medic, can't do very much.

Maybe its because nothing that big happened during my time in the hospital. Maybe its because half of our school instructors were retired nurses and went really in depth with their lectures. Maybe we just didn't know the right questions to ask.

Experience in seeing how the other side works is all we got out of it.
 
SFLfire said:
I see a lot of people saying its pointless for most nursing students to have ride times so let me ask this. Isn't it pretty pointless for emt students to have clinicals? Again, what are we learning? Not a medic, can't do very much.

Maybe its because nothing that big happened during my time in the hospital. Maybe its because half of our school instructors were retired nurses and went really in depth with their lectures. Maybe we just didn't know the right questions to ask.

Experience in seeing how the other side works is all we got out of it.
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Even if that is all you got out of it, that's pretty valuable in itself.
 
I only spent 8 hours in clinicals at the ED as part of my EMT-B program this semester.

It was an incredible learning experience! Patient interaction, seeing the trauma room in use, and I probably only absorbed a fraction of what was going on around me.

Pretty much everything in life is a learning experience, if we want to learn something from it.
 
Halothane said:
Even if that is all you got out of it, that's pretty valuable in itself.
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This. This is my point. Experience. It goes back to my original question.

Look, I loved my clinical, all of us did. There were 6 of us at the hospital and at the end, as we were walking to our cars, we all said we wish we could do another one. The steady flow of patients was great!

But if gaining nothing but experience was helpful for an emt student, why wouldn't it be helpful for a nursing student? Why not get as much exposure as possible? Its not time wasted when you consider some of them may end up in pre hospital or critical care nursing.
 
SFLfire said:
But if gaining nothing but experience was helpful for an emt student, why wouldn't it be helpful for a nursing student? Why not get as much exposure as possible? Its not time wasted when you consider some of them may end up in pre hospital or critical care nursing.
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Because a very small percentage of nursing students will end up in the ER or in Critical Care. For the vast majority of nursing students it really would not add much to their learning experience. There are better ways to spend their time. You get a much better chance of seeing more patients and doing more procedures in the ER than you would on an ambulance.

In nursing school you have relatively few shadowing shifts. I would much rather be in the ICU, Cath lab, Surgery, Neuro, etc
 
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I doubt it would make much difference if ER nurses did ride alongs. Some of them were EMTs or Medics(or still are) and are already familiar with EMS, and its not like it makes much difference how they go about things in the ER.

This reminds me of a patient I brought into the ER recently secured to a board with a KED on, and the Nurse thought the KED was the coolest thing shed ever seen and said she wanted to take an EMT course some day so she could play with our all neat toys(no im not making this up).
 
SFLfire said:
But if gaining nothing but experience was helpful for an emt student, why wouldn't it be helpful for a nursing student? Why not get as much exposure as possible? Its not time wasted when you consider some of them may end up in pre hospital or critical care nursing.
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The reason hospital time is extremely valuable for EMT's and paramedics is because the hospital is where medicine is done. It's where you go to learn about patient care, whether you are training to be a paramedic, a nurse, or a physician. There is simply no where better go to see sick patients receive care.

On the other hand, not that much happens clinically on an ambulance that the nursing student or new nurse won't get exposure to in the hospital.

EMT and paramedic students could probably learn something from doing rotations in primary care settings, so why don't we send them there? Because, even though that might be of some benefit, we have a limited amount of time and money to spend on training, so we have to go where we get the most bang for our buck.

For a paramedic, that place is not a family doctor's office. For a nurse, that place is not the ambulance.
 
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How about requiring every nurse going through nursing school to do 3-4 shifts with a critical care interfacility transport team. Most of those teams in busy cities transport 3 or more patients a shift, most on drips..etc..etc...

I think that would be good experience and worth the time to take away from the floor.


I absolutely agree that 9-1-1 is not a place a nurse needs to be to learn,
 
Rialaigh said:
How about requiring every nurse going through nursing school to do 3-4 shifts with a critical care interfacility transport team. Most of those teams in busy cities transport 3 or more patients a shift, most on drips..etc..etc...
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I agree that it would be an awesome learning experience but not feasible for every nursing student. Also, as I mentioned before the vast majority of nurses will never be ICU nurses, manage vented patients, etc and most do not want anything to do with it.
 
Chase said:
I agree that it would be an awesome learning experience but not feasible for every nursing student. Also, as I mentioned before the vast majority of nurses will never be ICU nurses, manage vented patients, etc and most do not want anything to do with it.
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I know, I'm just thinking if we are going to require something, it would need to be along the lines of critical care transport so as to be sure that the student would see XYZ in the field over 3-4 days.
 
The majority of nursing students only get 2 ICU shifts during school. I don't know of any that get CCT.
 
Halothane said:
The reason hospital time is extremely valuable for EMT's and paramedics is because the hospital is where medicine is done.
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Than why was it that when I did my hospital time as an EMT I only interacted with a nurse, and that was barely? If I was supposed to be exposed to medicine, shouldn't training facilities be working with the physician group staffing the emergency department than the hospital itself?
 
My Paramedic program required that I do 2 clinical rotations in med/surg with a floor nurse. The staff was great, and I found the estrogen driven gossip of the nurses station interesting. However, beyond that, I got to see the life of a floor nurse. It was interesting and a cool experience, but to be honest it did nothing for my clinical skills, nor did it help me as a Paramedic. It did not relate to my job at all. I am not sure how much the school paid for that time or wasted with it, but it could have been spent much better in the ICU or the OR for a Paramedic student.
I guess this is somewhat what it would be like placing a nurse with the fire department, impractical and wasteful. Also since it is a fire department doing patient care here..... would it not make more since to make the fire department shadow a health care agency?
 
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