Since then I have maintained my full time work schedule (24/48 with swapping days to be off for school), managed to make plenty of volunteer calls with the local VFD, and of course went to school.
Sounds like most paramedic students I went to class with or taught.
The first semester I studied pretty good, managed a 4.0. Since the beginning of this last semester, I have been reluctant to study. After being in class till 5, doing 12 hour clinicals, 24 or 48 hrs on the truck, and having to managed my schedule I just can't find the motivation. I have cracked a book twice and am still making the As (last two tests were an 88 and an 86 though)..
88 and 86 are As? (Not important.)
That is why your final grade is an average. It sounds like you sprinted out of the gate and now you are tired and are slowing down.
Rather than lament you are not still sprinting, use this as a learning experience and next time you are in a class, don't sprint the first few steps of a marathon.
The student who gets good grades early is not a better student than the one who starts slow and finishes strong. He is not a better student than the one who has a constant average throughout.
I balk at the idea of studying. I LOVE to learn and I still read pertinent information in articles and whatnot, but I just can't seem to drill information into my head.
That is a failure of your instructors/program. I have seen it in most medic programs. There are extra resources for students who struggle, but never extra challenges for students who quickly advance.
In classes with a paramilitary structure, only average students are ever satisfied, with the extremes of the sclae highly dissatisfied.
It doesn't help that I don't have much faith in this program and all of my clinical rotations and even my calls at work have all been the general illness type calls that make you lose interest. Say what you want, but we all know running granny to the hospital for two or three weeks with no true high stress call wears on you- especially at 2am when you need to be asleep for school. (I have White Cloud syndrome)
Welcome to EMS.
This is most of the calls/patients. This number will also increase as modern society suffers more from chronic disease than acute illness. It is not going to change much no matter where you go.
I think you have to take a hard look at what EMS really is and decide if it is for you. Your best "saves" will require the most minimal effort.
If you were hoping to be saving lives more than a handful of times a career, you picked the wrong business, you should have went into public sanitation or something similar.
You also have to remember where you do clinicals and ride time at. A paramedic student who goes to an academic medical center in a highly populated area is going to have a better experience than somebody who goes to a community hospital close to home.
You may find it worth the drive to go to a busy station or hospital for your clinical time.
Anyways, enough of my whining. How do you guys beat academic fatigue? What are your study habits?
:rofl:
First, I live by this phrases:
"Non scholae sed vitae discimus" and "poor is the student who doesn't exceed his master."
If learning is something you enjoy, then do it like you enjoy it, not like a task to be done. Read your book like you read a novel, looking for the plot and story, not just facts to be memorized.
I encourage students I teach not to take notes when I lecture. (Of course I do not lecture word for word off of slides or on facts. I connect facts and explain hard to understand concepts, paramedic students don't (at least shouldn't) need somebody to read the book to them.)
My study habits?
It is a lifestyle. I have accepted school in some form or another is forever. I don't look for the end, I look for the next challenge. (which this week in addition to my normal hospital routine is the tedium of data entry and studying.)
pace yourself, it is not a sprint.
