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The following are albums of pictures from different times in class that show the variety in training we were put through. I cannot begin to describe the importance of each aspect of Emergency Medicine that was learned because you cannot put a price tag on the skills to save another person's life.

Emergency Medical Technician

Patient Assessments

The Patient Assessment is one of the most important tasks for any level of EMT to learn. This is completed during the initial contact with the patient and used as a rapid scan of the patient to check for what is the chief complaint. Sometimes the patient is not able to communicate, possibly due to a traumatic injury causing unconsciousness, so a full body scan is done to check for any signs of an obvious problem. This is known as a Trauma Patient Assessment. In other circumstances, the patient is able to tell the EMT what is wrong, so a more focused scan can be done in a shorter time, thus, aid is rendered quicker to treat the cause of the problem. This is known as the Medical Patient Assessment. The most important aspect of these skills is that the whole patient should be checked regardless of symptoms only in one part of the body. With learning this skill, the EMT can complete this task quickly and efficiently. One important note to make: The Medical and Trauma Patient Assessments were part of the practical testing that was done at the end of the semester. Each assessment has about 50 steps to them that had to be memorized for the test. Forgetting choice steps would result in a fail. All class members passed these tests.

Bandaging & Splinting

Another skill learned were various ways to bandage and splint patients with various injuries. This included any types of head injuries that could be bleeding, torso and appendage injuries that needed to be secured for transport, and items that could be impaled in various locations in the body. No Curlex rolls were wasted in this process.

Dissecting & I.V.s

A couple of great things we were able to do that other classes are usually not able to do was to dissect the lungs, heart, liver, and trachea of a deer and to give each other I.V.s. With the dissecting, that is usually saved for students going into various parts of nursing. Myself and the other EMT students had the chance to cut into these various parts to see the inner workings of each organ. We were even able to reinflate the lungs using a Bag Valve Mask (the football looking thing) and see the bronchiole expand and contract. We were then given some basic instruction on how to suture these cuts back together. Now, these skills would never be used in a real world situation because EMTs are not allowed to do these tasks due to specific medical protocols, but having the knowledge to do these tasks never hurt anyone. In October, there was another class giving instructions to other students on how to administer I.V.s to patients. The teacher of that class asked for volunteers from the EMT students to be live test subjects, and in return, the EMT students would be taught how to administer I.V.s too. Of course many of the EMT students agreed, and the ones that did not want to volunteer were still able to watch how the process went. I had done this class (administering I.V.s ) while in the Army, and decided it would be a great way to brush up on the skill.

Scenarios

These last pictures depict what we went through during the scenario based training portion of the classes. There were several times where scenario based training was used to solidify what had already been taught. The instructors came up with the scenario details, facilitated all of the equipment that was involved in the undertaking of the scenarios, and then acted them out accordingly. The students were even given the opportunity to make scenarios for the other students in the class. Usually the scenario tasks were attempted by groups of four students. This was a great method to do things because at times the situations could become overwhelming. Usually at the end of a module is when the scenarios would be held that instituted what was learned in that module, with a humongous scenario day held at the end of the semester just before testing started. I know I benefitted from the instructor's hard work, as did the rest of the class. Setting these things up was no easy task. Getting all of the elements lined up to make each station a success could prove daunting. I'd like to call myself a cool cat under stressful situations, but there were even moments that made me sweat in these scenarios.