What antics from teachers do you hate the most?

FLEMTP

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One of the other people mentioned something that had me thinking.. in EMS they take just about anyone into an EMT class...as long as you have the cash.. they'll give you the education..

I think they need to make entrance exams into EMT and Paramedic a MUST...and if you arent maintaining a passing grade during the course.. you get booted.. and testing needs to be much more stringent.

Too many times do I see a paramedic student fail his final.. to have his instructor sit down with him, tell him what he got wrong.. and then pass him because he was "remediated" or give him the same exact test and tell him to retake it. EMS isn't supposed to be a feel good thing... where anyone and everyone can get into it, regardless if they can pass the courses and material... its a profession, and should be treated as such.. seeing as how lives are at risk, and the public trusts us as professionals to know what we are doing.
 

Ridryder911

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You addressed a point that EMS educators have been debating and struggling with educational administration and even EMS administrators for years... passing them off!.

Somewhere, about 15 years ago or so; throughout the EMS community we started assuming that it is was okay for everyone to pass. It might have started with the ACLS changing into an educational seminar and allowing remediation and passing everyone through.. who knows but it followed into the arena of EMS education.

I and many educators are trying to install that failing is good not just for the system but for the patient. Where and why do we think that is okay and should be allowable for mediocrity? Not everyone can be an astronaut a cardiovascular surgeon or install cable tv but it's okay to become an EMT? ...

Most programs place the filters on testing such as NREMT. NREMT is as disgusted as we are in that process. Unfortunately, it's just a test... there will be those that should had never been allowed to test.. pass. Then we blame the testing agency.. NO blame the instructors and schools!

Blame the schools for not just allowing those to pass but to enter the programs. Why is it almost every other health care profession require entry level requirements other than cash, and EMS does not? It's not that there is a shortage of EMS personnel? Then to add that the text books are written at high school level and majority of them are filled with pictures to enhance the poor learning skills of those that take classes. An instructor that has never studied adult education and what do we expect the results to be? Disastrous, in which it is.

To make it worse, students then acclaim that they had the "best" instructor (albeit they never had another one to compare with) and to develop cocky attitude because the completed an advanced first aid class disguised as a medical program. When in fact all other professional medical programs require additional science courses before being allowed to enter entry level. Yet, we make excuses than to correct the problem.. mainly self inflated egos and ignorance of medicine as even demonstrated on this site acclaims to know what is best. When questioned about credentials, experience and knowledge of health care education, they fall short on relying on their personal single experience or view. One of the MANY reasons those that really affect the changes within EMS pays no attention to EMS forums, and why should they?

R/r 911
 
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NepoZnati

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I think they need to make entrance exams into EMT and Paramedic a MUST...and if you arent maintaining a passing grade during the course.. you get booted.. and testing needs to be much more stringent.

Blame the schools for not just allowing those to pass but to enter the programs. Why is it almost every other health care profession require entry level requirements other than cash, and EMS does not? It's not that there is a shortage of EMS personnel? Then to add that the text books are written at high school level and majority of them are filled with pictures to enhance the poor learning skills of those that take classes. An instructor that has never studied adult education and what do we expect the results to be? Disastrous, in which it is.
That would be a great for my class! Otherwise I wouldn't have a guy near me failing the CPR test 2 times or others after once or twice, asking us what is BLS or is systolic of 70 good?!
 
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Fulch

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I found the majority of my instructors to be top-notch. They had great interpersonal skills as well as being great teachers. If you had a question and they didn't know the correct answer (no-ones perfect right?) instead of making something up to look smart, they would go look it up or double check during a break and clarify when they came back to class, or you could E-mail them questions and they would get back to you in the evening.
There was a little bit of "this is how we do it in the field" but it was usually followed by a reminder that we were learning whats in the book first and foremost. I will admit that sometime the "this is how we do it in the field" Would come back and bite us on the *** because we would get mixed up during tests but i feel overall i managed to work it out.

Ok, that said, i do have to vent a little about one instructor. Let me begin by saying before i get jumped all over, the teaching staff was approx. 50/50 male/female and this is not a gender issue. From the start I found this instructor to be condescending and patronizing, I like a loose and friendly class room as much as the next guy but I don't appreciate being spoken to as if I just wandered in to the room in a clown costume. I understand that we're all rookies until proven otherwise but still don't treat us like a A-holes while pretending to be "helping us", at least do everyone the courtesy of just being a straight PR$@K to the class, I don't have a problem with a tough but fair teacher.
She never really explained anything and just contradicted the other teachers, by teaching "her way of doing things". But the attitude was no worries at all compared to this instructors way of testing. She seemed to have a problem with some of the other instructors and so if she didn't like the way you were taught a certain skill she would change the test, adding extra things or changing the conditions of the skill to trip us up, on one skills day she had a 100% fail rate verses the other instructors 30% fail rate.
Now at first i thought maybe this was just the luck of the draw, until i took my medical assessment skill test with her and she gave me contraindications for EVERY drug an EMT-B has access to and then failed me for not giving the patient a drug. When i called her on it she informed me that despite the fact that she had given me contraindications for all the drugs (I had to prove this by walking her through the contraindications in the text book. e.g. "Did you say the patient had was unresponsive with no gag reflex?" "Yes i did" Check. "Did you say the patient had a BP of 85 sys?" "Yes". check) I still should have given the patient a drug, I had decided to give O2 and Transport.

After I went to the course director about this and she admitted to changing the scenarios on the test sheet, she informed me that the reason she hadn't passed me was because she felt she was giving me "way too much help". Now I don't think staring at me with a half smirk on you're face and changing the test scenarios to trip us up counts as helping, but unless i TOTALLY missed the point of testing, I DON"T WANT YOU TO F@#$ING HELP ME, I want you to test me to make sure I don't accidently kill or hurt someone in the field. If I fail, I fail. Tough luck, work harder, better luck next time, but don't help me or hinder me to prove a point to the other teaching staff about how rubbish you think they are. In the end i was re-tested with another instructor with a different scenario and passed with no problem.

Sadly the flip side of this is that everyone get multiple attempts at everything, which i kind of understand, nerves and all, but if you fail the final three times maybe you didn't fully grasp the material and should go and take another look. Unfortunately this happened to a friend of mine who ended up passing fourth go round and went on to pass the NREMT third attempt, but thankfully ended up going back to work as a personal assistant to a politician, no joke.
 
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Veneficus

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I guess the idea of discussing individual teaching traits is lost on the dilemmas of EMS education so I guess I will add some perspective.

Not because I agree with it, but because there seems to be this grand idea that simply making educational requirements more “intensive” that somehow things are going to change.

Increasing entry level requirements on a tech certification is like putting entry level requirements on a welder or medical assistant. “We’re sorry Mr. Smith, little Johnny is just not smart enough for shop class.” By the very definition an EMT is a “technician.”

technician [tɛkˈnɪʃən]
n
1. a person skilled in mechanical or industrial techniques or in a particular technical field
2. a person employed in a laboratory, technical college, or scientific establishment to do practical work
3. a person having specific artistic or mechanical skill, esp if lacking original flair or genius

Maybe that is why the fire service sees EMS as an add on skill. Lest we forget, most EMS in the US is provided by the FD. Firefighting is a vocation.
As well, a large portion of EMTs work in interfacility transport. There is no training in EMS education for such. Even the glorious National Registry is based around emergency care. You need a 2 year degree to give somebody a lift to the doctor? The certification test so easy you don’t even need a class, just a test prep book. How about ranking students who pass the test? "Sorry, you were in too low a percentile to work here."

The simple fact is Nursing, Physical therapy, etc. were not add on skills to another occupation.

Textbooks. My textbooks have lots and lots of pictures and diagrams. I even purposefully buy ones like “Illustrated review of biochemistry.” Granted it is a review book, not a primary text, but not a page goes by in Pathological Basis of Disease without a picture and that is a primary text in medicine world wide.

Blame a school? For what? In the US education is paid for. Economic means is the barrier. From Harvard to your local community college, SATs, ACTs its all a farce, show up with enough cash and you are in. Schools exist because there are people who will pay for what they offer. From “career centers” to Universities, if nobody is paying for a class, it is not offered. I am all for merit based education, but who is going to pay for it?

Job to pay ratio. I advocate to increase EMS education. But after a person takes out a loan for a 4 year degree is the industry going to start paying more than McDonalds?

http://www.mcdonalds.com/usa/work/careers/shiftmanager.html
http://www.mcdonalds.com/usa/work/careers/assistantmanager.html
http://www.mcdonalds.com/usa/work/careers/restaurantmanager.html

You can reduce the number of EMS schools, similar to Nursing or Medicine, but then who is driving Grandma to dialysis 3 days a week? At what cost to medicare?

US EMS has a culture of shifting responsibility. “It is not my fault it is the:” Lt. the FTO, the doctor. Sounds like a tech mentality to me. I could rattle off a list of (high performance) EMS agencies that don’t want critical thinking like I was reciting the alphabet in a song. Maybe a handful are or aspire to be more. They are the exception not the rule. We all know who they are because there are so few.

I’m sorry, there are many people in EMS who should be considered more than a tech. They are more capable and more dedicated than many allied or nursing "professionals". But like every other profession or vocation, they don’t get a special certification or expanded scope. They are held to the same rules and laws everyone else is, the lowest common denominator.

Even in “reputable” EMS agencies, qualifications are often labor focused. “Must have 1 year experience in 911 ops” awesome, one year out at good ole boys volunteer FD. Even in education “must have one year as an EMT working in the field.” Never saw “must have one year as a PA or one year as a nursing assistant.

It’s not that schools aren’t listening or providers are listening. The public and politicos aren’t listening. They don’t know good EMS from bad. EMS has shot its own foot with BS like response times to justify its existence. It has been legislated by a number of parties to a vocational position. From trucking companies in the dialysis derby to FDs who need $600+ dollars for a cab ride with lights to a hospital. You can find doctors who are also firemen, you cannot find firemen who are also doctors. (Change “doctor” to “medical professional” of your choice.)

Blame does not lie with the schools or with testing. If you want to find fault, start with hiring managers. “if you don’t have a degree you cannot interview.” Move on over to finance, “If you cannot pay the fee, you cannot have an ambulance.” How about the providers? “I was just following protocol when I forced the 90 year old lady onto the backboard.” Or “Our agency follows the standards of care no matter what evidence to the contrary has been presented because we cannot be the first to change so the stndard remains.”

If US EMS is ever to be a profession, an increase is education is a given. But you could increase it to a doctorate, exclude anyone you don’t subjectively feel is worthy, and certify yourself as all knowing all powerful raiser of the dead. But there is too much money and therefore special interest involved to think any educational increase will solve EMS’s problems.

Let’s not also forget if you take away “low level” jobs, you will increase unemployment. EMS especially today is a quick “retraining” to get back to work before your unemployment benefits run out. Such is the savior of a fallen economy.
 

mycrofft

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So indiscriminately passing students is annoying?

Maybe even lethal.
 

goodgrief

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thast is how it is at my school

I think they need to make entrance exams into EMT and Paramedic a MUST...and if you arent maintaining a passing grade during the course.. you get booted.. and testing needs to be much more stringent.


i am currently in school for EMT-I and in our program if you dont pass a test you get one retake, if you fail you are out. You are also out if you fail more than 3 test over all. Forget entrance exams, I think anatomy and phyology should be required before emt school. I havent taken it yet and it is really hurting me..

My teach says it best, if a class cant pass the NREMT, blame the teacher not the test.
 

DrParasite

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want to hear something funny? when I took my first EMT class was in NJ, and taking my EMT, I was told if the student doesn't complete the EMT curriculum, then the course host would not get paid by the state. as long as they completed the course (regardless of if they passed the state test as well), then payment was given. so it was in the teaching agency's best interest to pass everyone. I think for ALS it's different since the state doesn't pay for ALS training, but it was for BLS.

out of curiosity, what education and formal training do most firefighter instructors have?

Additionally, I have taken an instructor class or two, and surprisingly enough, they had very little content about what I would be teaching. it was all about "how to teach" and "teaching techniques" so I guess the theory was if you know the content well enough, you could apply these techniques to pass the information to others.

btw, I have had some :censored::censored::censored::censored:ty educators when I was in college. these were people with doctorate degrees that just didn't give a damn about what they were talking about, didn't know what they were talking about, or didn't care.

As for good/bad antics, I actually enjoy war stories. tell me of a situation where what you are telling me actually helped, and I will pay attention. tell me a story where you got thrown a curveball, this is what happened, and this is how you dealt with it. for my A&P classes, if the instructor has a medical background, tell me how knowing this thing about the human body helps diagnose something. tell me how what you are telling me was actually useful in the field, and I will pay attention. Call me ignorant if you want, but I like knowing that what is being taught to me has real world applications, and if you can give examples of when the education you are giving me was actually used, well, that's worth it's weight in gold in my book.

unfortunately, education is about money, and if you have sky high failure rates people won't want to go to your school. it also reflects poorly on the instructors (at the EMS and academic level). Or they will take it as the easier place, because as long as you get your medic cert, few will care where you get it, as long as you have it.

One thing I do wish is EMS instructors would have high level of training. so medics are teaching BLS, and nurses and MDs are teaching. and if you have a lecture on airway, an RRT is teaching. if I have a question about the content, the instructor should have a knowledge far surpassing the student, and if a question is asked that isn't covered in the course, then the instructor should be able to answer it, even if it's not in the text book.
 

rescue99

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One thing I do wish is EMS instructors would have high level of training. so medics are teaching BLS, and nurses and MDs are teaching. and if you have a lecture on airway, an RRT is teaching. if I have a question about the content, the instructor should have a knowledge far surpassing the student, and if a question is asked that isn't covered in the course, then the instructor should be able to answer it, even if it's not in the text book.

So, are these Docs and nurses Medics too? The world outside is very different for Medics. I've found Docs to be extremely helpful for some subjects but a waste of time on others in the classroom. Unless a Doc can teach it all, I'd prefer he/she stick to being a content expert.
 

LucidResq

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One thing I do wish is EMS instructors would have high level of training. so medics are teaching BLS, and nurses and MDs are teaching. and if you have a lecture on airway, an RRT is teaching. if I have a question about the content, the instructor should have a knowledge far surpassing the student, and if a question is asked that isn't covered in the course, then the instructor should be able to answer it, even if it's not in the text book.

This is something I felt the school I went to for EMT-B got right. Our primary instructor was an experienced medic. Our skills instructors were medics. Our pediatric classes were taught by an experienced ED RN from a Children's Hospital.

So, are these Docs and nurses Medics too? The world outside is very different for Medics. I've found Docs to be extremely helpful for some subjects but a waste of time on others in the classroom. Unless a Doc can teach it all, I'd prefer he/she stick to being a content expert.

I think it's awesome to have experts with a high level of training teach specific elements of each class. I don't think DrParasite was implying that an MD teach the entire course, rather perhaps focus on particular content that they are an expert in. If the person doesn't have a solid, recent background in the prehospital elements of that subject, those can be addressed by the primary instructor, who should have that prehospital background.
 

DrParasite

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So, are these Docs and nurses Medics too? The world outside is very different for Medics. I've found Docs to be extremely helpful for some subjects but a waste of time on others in the classroom. Unless a Doc can teach it all, I'd prefer he/she stick to being a content expert.
really? so the human body changes whether you are in a hospital or in the projects? you mean the drugs work differently inside the hospital vs on the streets? really, wow, I guess I have to tell my medical director that anything he says doesn't apply to the world outside. thanks for educating me :rolleyes:

this is the type of thinking that has keeps ups back. you don't need to be a medic to be an expert in an area involving EMS. a poison control specialist might be a great person to teach an overdose class. a resp therapist might be great at dealing with treatment for breathing problems. and a trauma surgeon would be great at dealing with trauma victims. if you are overseeing the course, yes, EMS experience might help, but there can be a lot learned from specialists that a medic don't know
 

rescue99

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really? so the human body changes whether you are in a hospital or in the projects? you mean the drugs work differently inside the hospital vs on the streets? really, wow, I guess I have to tell my medical director that anything he says doesn't apply to the world outside. thanks for educating me :rolleyes:

this is the type of thinking that has keeps ups back. you don't need to be a medic to be an expert in an area involving EMS. a poison control specialist might be a great person to teach an overdose class. a resp therapist might be great at dealing with treatment for breathing problems. and a trauma surgeon would be great at dealing with trauma victims. if you are overseeing the course, yes, EMS experience might help, but there can be a lot learned from specialists that a medic don't know

Again...if they have no clue how to do a field job, they only make good content experts. It is a personal opinion..not meant to be anyone else's.
Not being anyone's keeper but, I do have some observations of my own.

The days when Doc's did quite a lot of the teaching are long gone. They made great cardiology / ACLS experts but, Medics must not be worth their time because Doc's quit teaching it over 10 years ago. Since ALL courses have to have a medical advisor, one does have to ask; where the heck are they while all this so-called crappy education is taking place??? ;)
 

Ridryder911

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Medicine is medicine.. yes, they make great expert LECTURER but that is different than being the primary instructor/educator of having knowledge of the working environment and the expectations that is required. The same as if an EMS expert was to try teach nursing, RT, etc..

R/r 911
 

redcrossemt

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To the OP's initial question, hated the teacher reading off the powerpoint slides. Seriously, he would stare at the screen with his back to us and read the screen word for word without interruption, explanation, clarification, or creativity; and go to the next slide. Sometimes he would even mispronounce a word, or not be able to say a word at all because he didn't know what it meant. After he was done way early, we would be assigned what he himself termed "busy work" that had very little to do with anything taught in class.

When asked to explain certain things, the teacher would say, "look it up in your book". Please, educators out there, admit to your students when you don't know the answer to a question, and make the effort to answer it at a later point in time.
 

Melclin

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We have always had units provided by other faculties, multidisiplinary guest lecturers, and indeed, the faculty itself retains many disciplines to teach other things. Eg,

-In A&P, the lectures on various body systems were taughter by experts in each specific area, all of whom had at least a doctrate.
-A sosciologist specialising (with a PhD) in healthcare took us for health systems.
-An intensive care paramedic completing his doctrate in paramedic education took us for basic resus and clinical assessment.
-A doctor of clinical psychology runs the research and mental health subjects.
-An RN with a law degree and a PhD took us for legal aspects of healthcare.
-An RN with a PhD takes us for management of medical conditions.
-Many guest lecturers:The Head of the State Paediatric Trauma centre gave our lectures on paediatric trauma. An Intensive Care Physician took us for Neuro trauma. Crash specialist from the accident research centre taught us about MVA dynamics and patterns of injury. A paramedic with a PhD in Paramedicine took us for trauma triage and evaluation. The Neo Natal Retrieval team clincal educaters teach us neonatal resus. A midwife takes the obstetrics classes. We have lectures from disability groups, mental health interest groups and specialist paramedics from the air wing and retrieval services.
-The department maintains nurses, psychologists, an anthropologist, research and information specialists as well as many highly educated and successful paramedics, and is headed by a Physician who was also an ambulance officer many years ago.

Their obvious knowledge in their respective fields is incredibly helpful and their skill for teaching, a credit to their own educators. The university would be doing us a horrible diservice if it thought we would benefit from ONLY being taught by paramedics. I can't think of how narrow my education would be if I sat in a class room with a paramedic/s with only 2 years (probably at the most) of education himself teaching me entirely out of one text book about all subjects. Thats simply absurd.

One of the most misunderstood ideas is that a great medic will automatically make a great instructor.

Truth.
 

MidwestFF

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I have a displeasure for Instructors that will not allow students that are excelling at class to work ahead. We are stuck working at the pace of the slowest student in the class uhhggg.
 
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Veneficus

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I have a displeasure for Instructors that will not allow students that are excelling at class to work ahead. We are stuck working at the pace of the slowest student in the class uhhggg.

Have you considered using the time to learn the subject material in greater detail?
 
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