Best Worst Experience of My Life

Brittany is an Arizona State University senior with the same background as the EMT students I am teaching on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Responding to “CONTROVERSIAL” EMT TRAINING, Brittany posted this reflection:

I too am a new EMT with my first year and a half under my belt. I was taught by a firefighter in a hot classroom on Saturdays how to be an EMT. It was the best worst experience of my life.

The FF didn’t want to be the teacher and only taught for the paycheck. My class only wanted to be there so they could test for fire.

JEMS FACEBOOK REACTION

The Firegeezer article was reposted on the JEMS – Emergency Medical Services FaceBook page. Over 360 JEMS fans looked at the article. Brittany and 24 others posted a response, many were long and detailed.

Their ems education represents a significant personal experience. Bob D. provides a fellow-fossil perspective:

(I was taught) … EMT-B with all the stuff to pass the test but they included the street smart stuff too. And we did ride alongs in a large city to gain exposure and know what we were getting into. … I still keep in touch with my EMS-Instructor after over 20 years.

A lot of the discussion revolved around those who approach EMS as a profession and those who just want a job, especially those who are only taking EMT to get a fire job.

Geoff F. provides a fresher perspective:

Being one of those generic college students who took a college course to be an emt, I benefited from the vocational type of training but I learned a lot about critical thinking, improvisation (not the humor kind), and adaptation. I really learned how to handle situations outside the comfort zone of a 19 y/o middle class college kid. Now being a 22 y/o brand new EMS instructor, I can see how teaching-to-the-test depends on the students’ personality.

I have students that are the traditional book-smart student that just want the cert for a resume booster. Then I have the students who are more street-smart that can take concepts and apply it to other facets of their lives. My feeling when I teach is that I want good clinicians who can also handle the operations side of an emergency and apply those concepts elsewhere. I try to teach skills for life.

SPEAKING OF FIRE

Colleagues were more personal on my FaceBook page. Dana Libby was shocked to learn that I was no longer teaching the use of leeches. Jay Iacone, a fellow former academy instructor, provided a fire analogy:

We teach the NFPA/IFSTA/Delmar methods to recruit firefighters for raising ladders, advancing hoselines and other basic firefighting tasks. We test the recruits on them passing an established standard from NFPA or IFSTA based on the local FF1 and 2 standards and then ship them out of the pristine sterile world of the future firefighter factory and into the “got do what you got to do to get it done” real world. (there is subtle sarcasm in his message )

workingfire Zac Unger is a child of a physician and educator, raised in the shadow of UC-Berkeley. While considering graduate school his mom encouraged him to apply to the hometown fire department. Unger wrote about his experience in Working Fire: The Making of an Accidental Fireman. Unger is the fire side example of the ems students I am teaching:

Zac Unger didn’t feel like much of a firefighter at first. Most of his fellow recruits seemed to have planned for the job all their lives; he was an Ivy League grad responding to a help-wanted ad at an Oakland bus stop. He couldn’t keep his boots shined, and he looked horrible in his uniform.

Reading the book I recognized the planned and unplanned absurdities within recruit training and the group dynamics at play. The experience with raising the 50′ tormentor ladder brought back memories as a recruit and an instructor.

Was more uncomfortable realizing how much of fire suppression training resembles a trivial pursuit memorization game. For Unger it included memorizing the zip codes of all of the city fire stations. In a 1998 recruit school, Unger was memorizing “… six binders full of paperwork that hadn’t been updated since the 1970’s, and every detail was fair game for weekly tests.”

Imagine if fire suppression was a Scope of Practice ….

Mike “FossilMedic” Ward
in a snow bank somewhere in DC

Also on FireGeezer…

“Controversial” EMT Training – January 23, 2010
Triumph of Convention over Controversy – March 9, 2010
Snapshot from the Paramedic Battlefield – October 12, 2009
Morning Lineup – March 5 – March 5, 2010

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Mike "FossilMedic" Ward

Hey Dana,

Great to hear from you. Laughed when you posted the leeches comment on my FaceBook page.

Appreciate your comments and glad to know we accomplished a lasting impression.

Stay safe!

Mike

danalibby

Mike, Jim & Bill - Great to find your blog! Lots of memories.

I remember the first EMT Class I attended was presented by Steve Cochrane, back when I was a volunteer in Fairfax City. Almost immediately after finishing the class and testing, I was hired by Fairfax County and started right off again with . . . another EMT class. A year or so after that, I was enrolled from Co 18 into the CCT class at Fairfax Hospital.

Although my career continued eventually into the Police Department (or as some may say, "to the dark side"), the skills learned those years ago and periodically refreshed by basic CPR and first aid classes have been beneficial. Because of things that I learned from Steve (and Mike), I was often better equipped to assess situations and render basic aid, whether in Fairfax County, or in post-retirement years serving overseas or in domestic disaster responses.

The importance of the instruction provided in the most basic of EMT classes can not be overstated. It may be laying the foundation to save a life or relieve suffering decades later.

You guys are champs!

Dana