Clinical Preceptors

Do you like having students around you?

  • Nope- They annoy me etc.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

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    31

EMT91

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In conjunction with the poll, what do you as clinical preceptors allow your students to do? When you get a basic student on your rig, do you let him or her do anything? Do you quiz them and help them or do you feel they are a burden? What about I85 students?
 
All depends on the student. Some I will let them do everything that I do. Others wont do anything or very little.

Regardless of how well they are doing they all get quizzed throughout the 12 hour shift.

I've had to send one student home early followed by a call to his instructor.

Then on their evaluation form I grade them on book knowledge, skills, communication, and how well they put their skills into an actual call.
 
All depends on the student. Some I will let them do everything that I do. Others wont do anything or very little.

Regardless of how well they are doing they all get quizzed throughout the 12 hour shift.

I've had to send one student home early followed by a call to his instructor.

Then on their evaluation form I grade them on book knowledge, skills, communication, and how well they put their skills into an actual call.
What all do you do? I see you are a Basic, correct?
 
I find out what their skill set is and then I put them to work. I expect basics to be able to do vitals, an assessment and ask pertinent history questions. Then we talk about the calls. What they should do and why they should do it.

We don't have intermediates here... And since I'm not a Delaware FTO, I can't have a paramedic student here yet.
 
What all do you do? I see you are a Basic, correct?

Correct I am a basic. If the student is doing well then vitals, 12 leads, IV prep, intubation prep, BGLs, oxygen admin, airway adjuncts, gurney operations, C-Spine, and everything that is in a basics scope.

If they don't feel comfortable doing something then I will either have them watch me the first time so they know how to do it or I will guide them thru the process.

If they are a wall flower I will say "hey grab a set of vitals". If they don't do it then I will ask why not after the call. If they still are a wall flower then they won't be doing anything on scene.

I tell the ride outs that they are to follow me and do not leave my side. I had one call where she did not listen to that. She crossed 3 lanes of moving traffic during a MCI because her friend was in a car that was in the center divider. After that call we sent her home because her not listening was a huge safety issue.
 
I love having students because it helps me to stay sharp as well. When they first get to station, I have them go through the truck and ask the usual getting to know them sort of questions. I ask them how class is going and what they are able to do up to this point. After finding that out, I let them know what I expect of them, what I will allow them to do, etc.

I offer to help them study, but know that you can only study so much, so I don't necessarily expect them to do so. They are adults and know what they need to do to pass their class.

After each run, we talk about it. I ask questions about what they think was going on with the patient, why they think that, if there was anything that could have been done differently and would it have made much of a difference, how they felt they did over all, and then discuss what they did well and what they could improve upon.
 
I like having students. A fresh face. Keen to learn. Someone to listen to me bang on about stuff. Extra set of hands. Whats not to like?

Obviously depends on the student. I usually try to have a chat at the start of the day about what stage they're at and what they wanna be doing.

First years mostly observe. Maybe a few skills, BP, chest auscultation, BSL etc.
For the simple or stable patient, i'll have them sit in the back and do obs and ask a few questions while I watch from the airway chair.

Second years.
Same as above. More sitting in the back with sicker patients. Doing interventions, critical thinking about pts.

Chat about jobs and pathophys during downtime, a little quizzing. Talk through the management of a job on the way. First crack at running their own job from start to finish for simple job types. Usually young people with extremity injuries.

Third years
Same as above. More detailed quizzing, more demanding in terms of ability to recall important knowledge. The tone changes from, "that s cool, I know you've got a lot to learn at the moment, keep at the study", to, "You've gotta know this stuff". Running jobs from start to finish with assistance for all but proper sick patients.
 
I like having EMT students, especially if it's their first ride or two. I love watching that deer in the headlights look go away after a couple of calls.

I usually let the student watch the first call, maybe take vitals if there's no pressure on getting them, and practice chatting with the patient on the way to the hospital. I hate beyond words listening to someone who really doesn't understand what's going on go step-by-step through SAMPLE and not even digesting the information, so I usually just go through a logical H&P discussion, and talk about all the SAMPLE info I got through the chatting.

It's a rare student who takes over entire calls for me. I usually save that for the preception. Paramedic students are a little different, I will let them do BLS calls, and run the show on ALS calls. I love to stop in the middle and explain how the answer to that question they just heard was a game-changer, now we're heading down ____ pathway, etc.

I love the brain stretch and extra chatting that comes with having a student. Very rarely, I'm not feeling it, and I might come across and tired, but I hope never crabby and unfriendly. I had a few like that and it was completely not cool.
 
I realize the people in this thread represent a small portion of all EMS providers but it really makes me happy to see there are some people who enjoy having students.

When I did my EMT-B I was not so fortunate with my clinical preceptors. I got some good experience taking vitals and hooking up the monitor, however for 2 out of 4 ride outs I wasn't allowed to load or unload the stretcher into the ambulance even when empty because the paramedic said she had a student who almost dropped someone so students weren't allowed to touch her stretcher anymore.

On my first ride out I asked if I could have someone help teach me where supplies were located at and they told me I could just look around myself which didn't help hardly at all because everything was inside tag locked cabinets and bags.

I was told not to bother asking SAMPLE and OPQRST type history questions because they had to ask the same questions and it would just be too bothersome. Finally I almost never got to talk to the crews because we were always in the ambulance and while I was sitting in the back I could barely hear or talk to the crew up front.

I love teaching people and I can't wait until I have a student riding out with me one day so I can try and help them learn. I'm glad to hear some other people are like that.
 
I will agree that students almost never touch the loaded stretcher. If I have a brand new any kind of partner, they don't touch the stretcher until they have demonstrated competence with it unloaded in practice.

My stretcher spiel for new people includes all the stuff the stretcher can do, all the ways you can hurt yourself and your partner, and the ways you can drop a patient.
 
I realize the people in this thread represent a small portion of all EMS providers but it really makes me happy to see there are some people who enjoy having students.

When I did my EMT-B I was not so fortunate with my clinical preceptors. I got some good experience taking vitals and hooking up the monitor, however for 2 out of 4 ride outs I wasn't allowed to load or unload the stretcher into the ambulance even when empty because the paramedic said she had a student who almost dropped someone so students weren't allowed to touch her stretcher anymore.

On my first ride out I asked if I could have someone help teach me where supplies were located at and they told me I could just look around myself which didn't help hardly at all because everything was inside tag locked cabinets and bags.

I was told not to bother asking SAMPLE and OPQRST type history questions because they had to ask the same questions and it would just be too bothersome. Finally I almost never got to talk to the crews because we were always in the ambulance and while I was sitting in the back I could barely hear or talk to the crew up front.

I love teaching people and I can't wait until I have a student riding out with me one day so I can try and help them learn. I'm glad to hear some other people are like that.

I have a real issue with the way students are treated in our system.

In short, people complain constantly about how students and new medics don't know anything but they are almost always the same people that never make an effort to teach.

Oh boy, I feel a drunken rant coming on.

Students need to be made to feel part of the team. Because they are for starters, but its also an important confidence building exercise. There is way too much, "I'm the qualified medic and you are the scum that I ignore" BS that goes on.

My experience as a student was that I would spend many hours sitting awkwardly around a coffee table listening to extensive rants about how utterly useless university students were (never specifically directed at me but it was hard to ignore the implications) but almost no time being taught anything. I pushed, sure. But you can only push so hard.

Don't act like you're God's gift because there is a student around. I make a point of telling student about all the F ups I've made. Especially after they just had their confidence shattered by a gruff triage nurse, messed up their first cannulation or buggered something up in one of the million ways you do when you're learning. How about the time I forgot a page about a closed cath lab and took a legit CP to a hospital with a closed cath lab, or the time I left the monitor at hospital and didn't realise until the day shift checked the truck. The times I felt like I was the worst paramedic ever to walk the face of the earth, the times I couldn't hit the back side of a barn with a 24g because my hands were shaking so much. We all need to get a bit more comfortable with acknowledging that we screw up from time to time and as a student, about 20 times a day. But thats okay, as long as you learn from it. We all should. And we all should feel comfortable admitting it so that we CAN learn from it.

I walked into my clinical auditor's office about two months ago and basically told him I stepped outside the guidelines, I got it wrong and it probably caused significant harm to the patient. I was in his office for over an hour. Never once did I feel like I was "in trouble". I suffered no negative repercussions. I learned a lot from our discussion. I will feel comfortable admitting fault in the future and undoubtedly I will be back in his office at some stage learning more from my mistakes. I feel proud of him and the local part of our system for allowing that kind of culture, but unfortunately the system as a whole is not as forward thinking.

We complain constantly that we don’t get paid enough. Educating students is part of our role. How about we start earning the money we get paid before we ask for more.





Eurrghh. END RANT...for now.
 
Amen.

The reason the stretcher operation thing is such a trigger for me is because when I was a 19 year old just getting started, I dropped a lady one time. Freak accident caused by poor communication between me and my partner an failure to keep two hands on the stretcher at all times when rolling it.

That day sucked. It has stuck with me, though, and has made me a more careful provider over and over again.
 
Amen.

The reason the stretcher operation thing is such a trigger for me is because when I was a 19 year old just getting started, I dropped a lady one time. Freak accident caused by poor communication between me and my partner an failure to keep two hands on the stretcher at all times when rolling it.

That day sucked. It has stuck with me, though, and has made me a more careful provider over and over again.

I completely understand the caution with a loaded stretcher, hell I still get nervous when I unload a stretcher with someone on it. However, I didn't much appreciate being yelled at for loading the empty stretcher back into the ambulance at the end of the call at the behest of the EMT on the crew who supervised me while I was doing it.
 
No, I totally let the student do anything they want as long as they are either competent or teachable.

Looking at the poll, it's obvious that it's skewed by the people who care about EMS. I'm glad that this is a place populated with people who welcome students.
 
How many of you have let a basic or intermediate student put in a npa?
 
How many of you have let a basic or intermediate student put in a npa?

I have let students do it. One of the instructors at my college will actually let students place an NPA in his nose.

I also let them do OPAs.
 
I let students do anything within their scope of practice.

Generally I follow the example of my teachers and try not to let them do anything that carries undue risk of them hurting themselves.
 
I have not yet had the oppurtunity to place one in a patient. And ven I replied to your statement in the pain thread.
 
I like students WAY more than I do new-hire, newly-minted Paramedics.



I let, and in fact encourage, students to do anything and everything in their scope. I love NPAs, so if a patient is to get an airway adjunct, I get the student to do one.
 
On the flip side, the thing that probably pisses me off most is those Medics that whine and moan about students.

My response is generally to remind them that once, they were students also, brand new to the field, just exactly like the ones they're pissing and moaning about.

It usually does no good, but makes me feel better!
 
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