What paperwork did you do for your hospital clinical time? (NREMT)

[Gurby]

I'm a paramedic student currently doing my hospital rotations. My program is not well-run: I have no idea what is expected of me, I cannot reach my clinical coordinator by phone, email, and cannot track him/her down in person. However, I do have a schedule at a hospital.

Those of you who are NREMT certified: what documentation was required of you for your hospital clinical time? I haven't been able to find any information about program requirements on the NREMT website, and administrators at my school are not competent or trustworthy. I just want to make sure I don't get screwed. Thanks!

 

[PotatoMedic]

FISDAP.

 

[gotbeerz001]

I would imagine you can get all these questions answered the first day that you show up. There are plenty of people who are able to reach the coordinator but can never seem to get a schedule. Your problem is preferable.

For my clinical time we just had a binder that had proprietary forms and blanks to be filled in. It was not as structured as the internship documentation. What really mattered was the page that tracked the hours that you showed up and the signature of the nurse responsible for signing you off.

Lastly, you will find that is never a good idea to openly criticize the place you work or the school that you attend on a forum. This is a very small world.

 

[Gurby]

I would imagine you can get all these questions answered the first day that you show up. There are plenty of people who are able to reach the coordinator but can never seem to get a schedule. Your problem is preferable.

For my clinical time we just had a binder that had proprietary forms and blanks to be filled in. It was not as documented as the internship portion. What really matter it was the page that tracked the hours that you showed up and the signature of the nurse responsible for signing you out.

I've had my first few shifts already and nobody at the hospital really seems to know much about this process. They're just kind of, "do whatever you want and we'll sign you off on it" which is great and I'm learning a lot every day... But I just don't want to finish my hours and find out I neglected to do something important and am now screwed.

Sounds like FISDAP is a great way to track this stuff, but is not strictly required for accreditation/etc.

 

[gotbeerz001]

That is frustrating to be without clear direction, I feel for you.

I would try to be proactive and get a specific nurse to take you under their wing and set some objectives for you to accomplish during that shift.

The most important thing for you during this period is to work on developing an organized assessment. This is what you will need to have down by the time you get to the field. You need to use this assessment on as many patients as possible, and you should have a nurse evaluating you.

You will also want to get very comfortable with your IV skills. It's cool to get some drug administration in as well.

Also, hopefully you are able to assist as many different procedures as possible

 

[MrJones]

If you're feeling froggy you could always contact whatever agency in your state has authority over EMS training and certification, explain your situation, and ask them what you should do.

I'm betting you won't have any trouble contacting your clinical coordinator after that. In fact, I'd be willing to wager that your clinical coordinator will be contacting you.

 

[medicdan]

I'm a paramedic student currently doing my hospital rotations. My program is not well-run: I have no idea what is expected of me, I cannot reach my clinical coordinator by phone, email, and cannot track him/her down in person. However, I do have a schedule at a hospital.

Those of you who are NREMT certified: what documentation was required of you for your hospital clinical time? I haven't been able to find any information about program requirements on the NREMT website, and administrators at my school are not competent or trustworthy. I just want to make sure I don't get screwed. Thanks!

If your program is CoAEMSP/CAAHEP accredited they are required to have a documentation system that meets certain criteria. In order to obtain NREMT certification, your program needs CoAEMSP...

In short, be prepared to document all of your hours (with preceptor signature), all patient encounters and assessments, all skills (I've insertion, 12-lead acquisition and interpretation, medication interventions, airways, electrical therapies, etc.) All patients should be documented like an EMS PCR with pmhx, meds, allergies, a full narrative, etc.

 

[blachatch]

I had to do a full PCR for each patient assessment. Each IV, medication, intubation got a separate form to turn it. Basically we had a binder full of paperwork to carry around the hospital all day.

 

[hogwiley]

Just go with the flow and try to learn what you can. They cant very well fail you for not doing something they never told you to do. Be thankful, my program required continuous signatures for skills performed and assessments done, so hospital clinicals was a continuous exercise in annoying busy crabby ER Nurses for signatures and information, and carrying out tons of online and written documentation after a clinical shift was done. So much documentation that for every 12 hours of clinicals we did you can probably add 3 to 4 hours of sitting at a computer and filling out PCRs and summaries, and then doing the same thing on paper.

It was total BS because time spent doing that was time we didn't have to study the important stuff that might actually save someones life. Not a problem if your a 21 year old kid living with mommy and daddy and working contingent, but for those of us with real jobs and bills to pay it was a nightmare. Im hoping ill get caught up on lost sleep sometime by 2020.

 

[joshrunkle35]

I had a binder. It had a time sheet with locations and times and sign offs. It had sign offs for specific procedures. It had PCRs with signoffs. It had a running tally list of how many of what procedures had been done. It had forms where I was reviewed at the end of every shift, and one where I reviewed the proctor at the end of every shift.

All that being said...Every State has different requirements, every school, hospital and service and medical director has different requirements. The requirements of what you need will literally be very different at every single school.