Midterms

[Ninja Geoff]

BLECH. That's all I gotta say.

In the only class I'm taking, emt-b, we have 4ish. 1 big 100 question exam. And 3 different practical assessments. CPR, Trauma, and Medical. I kicked CPR and Trauma's "O Ring" and re-did med for a pass, but i'm REAAALLLYYYY nervous about the 100 question exam tomorrow. Gah, just venting. Doesn't help that i could REALLY use some sleep.

[shalihe74]

Heh; I can empathize - maybe not on the magnitude of the exams for one class, but on in overall 'exams suck' kind of way.

My b-school is on the module (read: quarter) system where we have 6- and 12-week classes. This means that every 3 weeks it is either mid-term or finals time or, at the particularly hellish 6-week mark, it is both mid-terms (for the 12-week classes) AND finals (for the 6-week ones).

Add in projects, daily readings and daily homework and you have the recipe for crazy.

Good luck on the 100 questions! I bet you'll do just fine.

[Apollofrost]

Hellish, monthly "Parciales" at the culinary school were much the same. Turn in all your notes for the semester typed and organized, then if it was a practical exam you had to write out the recipe for anything that was featured in that class, as well as anything that wasn't but is needed for the recipe.

Well seeing as we did roughly nine new recipes a week that could add up rather fast.

So how long is the EMT course?

[Ninja Geoff]

Hellish, monthly "Parciales" at the culinary school were much the same. Turn in all your notes for the semester typed and organized, then if it was a practical exam you had to write out the recipe for anything that was featured in that class, as well as anything that wasn't but is needed for the recipe.

Well seeing as we did roughly nine new recipes a week that could add up rather fast.

So how long is the EMT course?

The course all told is about 130-140 hours, ran from jan 29th and ends may 16, crazy considering how much work we have left to do and the fact that we're just now getting mid terms. Oh well, if I keep going with the grades I've been getting, I'm looking at an 83 or so as a final grade on the written stuff, 75 being passing. And the worst part is that there's a solid month between finals and the actual state examination. THEN there's ANOTHER 100 question test at some testing place about 40 minutes south of here on top of that state exam. It's really not that much compared to a lot of people with a full course schedual, but i've always dreaded the word exam... The practicals are just that, practicals, and fourtunatly, they don't refer to them as exams, or i'd choke on the med ones more than i already do. For some reason I have issues talking to a med patient, yet i can go head to toe 3 times on a trauma patient in under 10 minutes without missing anything except checking for paraprism.

On another note, I'll feel really bad if I get a med patient in the field like i got last night in the practicals. Poor guy was having an MI and I couldn't let him take his nitro as he had previously taken some other blood thinning, vascular excpanding medication for his condition 12 hours previously

/ending rant early before i start to get aggitated more than I already am

[Ninja Geoff]

woot, 85

[shalihe74]

Congrats!

[Loonette]

Congrats on your midterm!!

My EMT-B class ends on the 26th of this month (class began on Jan. 16). We've had 7 different "quizzes" plus the midterm. Now we're getting in our clinical hours (16 in ER with 5 patient assessments, 2 hours in respiratory therapy, as many hours as necessary with ambulance service to obtain at least 5 hospital runs/patient care reports). So far I've just got one ambulance run and the 2 hours of respiratory therapy complete. I'll be very busy the next few days. We have to hand in a list of 50 sets of vitals taken in the witness of a medical professional. Then there's the final class exam on the 24th (200 questions). Our practicals are on the 26th - 7 stations total - Trauma assessment/management, cardiac arrest management/AED, spinal immobilization (will either be seated (use of a KED) or supine), BVM apneic patient with a pulse, intubation (my personal favorite!), and then a random station which could be any one of 7 different skills. If all goes well, then it's off to the NREMT exam, which could be a couple hundred or so questions depending on how well you're doing on the test (it's one of those if-you're-doing-well-you'll-get-fewer,-yet-more-difficult-questions tests. So my mind is about to explode at this point.

I'm kind of the opposite of you. I do great on written exams (and so far I'm carrying a 94% average), but walking into a room with some unknown person there ready to administer the practical exams is freaking me out a bit. I just have to focus on the skills - not the proctor.

There's been fun stuff along the way though. The one ambulance run that I did was with my own department, so that was a nice experience. My fire department issued me my radio last week, and in mid-May I begin a ropes rescue course. That will be fun.

Anyway, hang in there - let us know how it works out for you. And remember, you're not alone...

Cheers,
Loonette

[Ninja Geoff]

Congrats on your midterm!!

My EMT-B class ends on the 26th of this month (class began on Jan. 16). We've had 7 different "quizzes" plus the midterm. Now we're getting in our clinical hours (16 in ER with 5 patient assessments, 2 hours in respiratory therapy, as many hours as necessary with ambulance service to obtain at least 5 hospital runs/patient care reports). So far I've just got one ambulance run and the 2 hours of respiratory therapy complete. I'll be very busy the next few days. We have to hand in a list of 50 sets of vitals taken in the witness of a medical professional. Then there's the final class exam on the 24th (200 questions). Our practicals are on the 26th - 7 stations total - Trauma assessment/management, cardiac arrest management/AED, spinal immobilization (will either be seated (use of a KED) or supine), BVM apneic patient with a pulse, intubation (my personal favorite!), and then a random station which could be any one of 7 different skills. If all goes well, then it's off to the NREMT exam, which could be a couple hundred or so questions depending on how well you're doing on the test (it's one of those if-you're-doing-well-you'll-get-fewer,-yet-more-difficult-questions tests. So my mind is about to explode at this point.

I'm kind of the opposite of you. I do great on written exams (and so far I'm carrying a 94% average), but walking into a room with some unknown person there ready to administer the practical exams is freaking me out a bit. I just have to focus on the skills - not the proctor.

There's been fun stuff along the way though. The one ambulance run that I did was with my own department, so that was a nice experience. My fire department issued me my radio last week, and in mid-May I begin a ropes rescue course. That will be fun.

Anyway, hang in there - let us know how it works out for you. And remember, you're not alone...

Cheers,
Loonette

WOW... OH EMT-B program > MA EMT-B program. We're not even allowed to give aspirin without taking a course. Don't even mention intubation unless you're ALS. How many hours is your course?

I find that trauma and cpr/aed are really easy because i use the patient as a reference point. For trauma, it's scene, bsi, ABCD, head to toe 3 times. And CPR starts off as a trauma, just that the intervention for cardiac arrest is a lot more involved than arterial bleeding or a pneumo thorax. Though for some reason, I choke on med assessments a lot

Though your post REALLY makes me want to get on the Intermediate program ASAP, or at least start taking it. They have the program at the college, but it's around 600 hours or so and I hope to work close to full time. Idealy, 3-4 days per diem, and on call volly the rest of the week. They've got a neat Bio course that's deigned specificly for EMS and it's all about resp and cardiac, and after i take that, i can start taking the intro to ACLS course. I won't be able to do anything with that in the field, but at least i'll have a better understanding of what the ALS unit doing in an intercept. And then after that course, it makes it so i can take a basic pharmacology course. Sure, my scope of practice will stay the same, but at least i might not be more than a bag pumper for some para, I'll actually know what I'm looking for when he asks for stuff out of his bag

HAH, i just remembered, we have a field trip to a junk yard with the Gill, MA FD for extrication

[Loonette]

Our course is roughly 130 hours as well. Ohio is the leading state in EMS care. To be fair though, as basics we can only intubate someone who is pulseless and apneic. A simple compromised airway is not within our SOP. But if they're basically dead anyway, we're puttin' a tube in. We can do aspirin, oral glucose, prescribed nitro, prescribed epi-pens, and prescribed albuterol inhalers, but we would still need to get authorization from medical control for all of that. Oh yeah, and activated charcoal is in our SOP, but apparently it's just not done around here prehospitally.

I'll most likely head on to at least the intermediate level - there's just so much more benefit to the patient. I might even venture into the paramedic level. But before any of that, I'll be doing level I firefighting training to see if I might like that more. Which ever one I enjoy the most is the one that I'll pursue past the basic level.

We ran some practice sessions tonight in class with our trauma assessments, and I got 37 out of 40 without missing any critical criteria. Yay! Trauma assessment is the only practical I've been worried about, but I'm feeling better about it now.

Cheers,
Loonette

[Apollofrost]

So what made you guys decide to do these courses?