Strange school policy?

[medicRob]

That's right...and it is the most any higher level educator should do. There is no worse sense of wrong in a good educator's eyes than to be obligated or forced into letting students see thier exam so the poor things can see what they did wrong. Something like that is the extreme exception, not the rule. It's not right and it isn't helping the students do anything more than "feel" better if they can see what they got wrong. Or my favorite; argue like a child in an effort to get his/her way. It's my job to be reasonably certain no errors are made on an exam. It's my job to do an item analysis. Any educator who takes the lazy route and doesn't, burns himself and his students in the end.

IMO, college is big-boy school. All this feel good education garbage is just that, garbage education.

I would tend to agree with you, especially when you are having to prepare your students to take a Computer Adaptive Test where the line of competency is clearly drawn and you either Pass or Fail.


Think about this Chilipepper,

If you are attempting to initiate IV access on a patient who needs critical meds, does the fact that you got a flash but not a patent IV mean that patient has a patent IV line? It most certainly does not. In this field, some of the decisions we make can mean the difference between life and death. When you are dealing with situations such as these, "Almost" just isn't enough. You either have the IV or you dont. The patient is either intubated or they are not. The instructor coordinator's job is to ensure competency and that every EMT and medic he/she puts out there can perform to the standards of their profession. This is not the place for "Hand-Holding" and gold stars. An instructor giving you praise for doing a skill half-way is almost equivalent to excusing the fact that you did half of it wrong.

When you get in the field, you are practicing under the license of your medical director, if you are not competent, it is not only your *** if you make a mistake, it is his. If you do not feel competent or are not sure about something, you should get with your instructor coordinator and say, "Sir, I am having trouble with this skill, I don't understand why I should do this, etc". However, you should put in the proper leg work when doing so and make the effort to read your textbooks to show your instructor that you are in fact making an effort and not just expecting him/her to do all the leg work for you. It is your responsibility in EMT / Paramedic school to get the knowledge you need to become competent and to practice the skills and the techniques to the point where you can perform them in high stress situations. The scene of a code is not the place to realize that you do not know how to intubate a patient.

That being said, good luck on all your educational endeavors.