Unitek 2 Week EMT-Basic Boot Camp

[medicdan]

Intensive educational experiences do work... under the right conditions. With motivated and highly competent students and instructors that are highly experienced but also master pedagogues intensive courses can produce excellent results. Mr. Perroni, your program is likely successful because your students are highly motivated members of Law Enforcement and already accustomed to the "Academy" style classes.

Accordingly, one of the best (and least known) EMT classes in Massachusetts is taught is less than four weeks, by a Master Instructor (not only with academic training in education, but perhaps the most experienced instructor in the state), to students that are already highly intelligent and motivated. The education is supplemented after with strong Con-Ed and skill reinforcement.

These classes work, but are the exception not the rule.

 

[Kale]

My experience with Unitek

I went to Unitek for my original certification - because I don't live and work in California, I had to recert in AZ six months after I completed the course. It is very expensive for an EMT-B course, but it should be noted that that cost includes hotel accommodations on site for 15 nights, three meals a day, transportation to field sites/the airport, the textbook, on online NREMT test prep program (JB learning, if I remember) and a voucher to take the NREMT. That, and the program has a ton of resources - lots of practice materials, a fully stocked ambulance and now, I guess, a helicopter. Also, CSU credit was offered to those who wanted it - though I won't need another college credit as long as I live so I didn't pay attention to this.

This set up, both in terms of the on site accommodations and the pacing, seemed geared towards a certain demographic for whom a semester long CC course might not be exactly easy - the students in the class were largely about-to-be-deployed military, several international defense contractors, law enforcement and firefighters who had already gained employ with a department somewhere (or had otherwise already been through an academy). Additionally, there were a few odd college students (all of whom were pre-med or pre-nursing) and then yes, a random couple of people for whom a CC course would have been a more obvious route. We also had one guy who had been working in EMS in Thailand for 12 years but had never received formal education in it and had flown back to the US solely for this purpose.

I can see why a lot of people would have major reservations about this type of a course - and with good reason. It's very little time to absorb a fair amount of new information. But the hours themselves are the same as a CC, as is the clinical/ride-along requirement - it's just packed into 12 hour days. If you're the type of person who learns quickly and thrives on intensive courses/academy style programs, it works well. If you're not, well, it was probably only a little bit better than useless.

I can't speak for the program in years passed, but I thoroughly enjoyed it when I went. It had a riveting and experienced lead instructor who managed to make several hours of lecture fascinating. He had a team of almost 30 odd other instructors who filtered in and out who helped with scenarios, taught skills, clarified some lecture material, helped us study, etc. There was a huge emphasis on live scenarios (to practice patient assessment) and hands on skills. Lecture topics from earlier in the day would often be translated into several live scenarios later in the day. You do begin to live it, because even when you're not in class every waking hour is filled studying or practicing skills/assessment outside the classroom with your classmates.

Trauma Sunday was 14 hours of live simulations which included things like several wrecked cars flipped over on their cabs lying in the street (so live traffic control was part of our education), with actors (mainly instructors and nursing students) in full gorey make up hanging upside down to seat belts and lying across hoods, etc. They simulated an MCI caused by a natural disaster at dusk (so finding victims became tricky). They simulated a violent scene and "killed" or "injured" the students who didn't clear their scene first or didn't keep monitoring scene safety during the exercise.

Honestly, I had a really good time and I learned a lot. I'm not going to claim that it was the best way of teaching the information for most people, or that it's even a really good way of teaching the information period, but most of my classmates seemed to do well. For the most part, they did well on their ride alongs (some of the bay area locals were even asked to come back and interview after they graduated), and many of the better students in the class have since found EMS related jobs or started medic school if they weren't already employed in their target job.

I do have my gripes with the program as well - while I had nothing but respect for most of my classmates and it did a pretty good job of weeding a few people out early in the program, it graduated a couple folks who I wouldn't trust with a house plant. It's possible that the instructors, in their experience, saw something I didn't. It's possible that the decision to not fail them was largely monetarily motivated. It could be that those couple of students would have been fine if they were in a slower paced, traditional CC course, or it could have been that it wouldn't have mattered what course they took because they were both dumber than bricks. Who knows.

Also, their career placement was completely useless for me and probably completely useless to anyone who wasn't a bay area local where they have all their connections. A number of the locals did end up getting jobs reasonably quickly and appear to have kept them. I had to get a job out here in AZ on my own.

I dunno, this post has gotten long. I could probably come up with more negative/shady things to note if I sat and reflected on it, but really on the whole my experience was very positive. Again, not defending it as a particularly good model for most students, but for some it does seem to work well.

 

[emtME]

My question about this is, assuming the training is adequate/you could learn everything in this format, how would one support oneself while taking a class like this? Many EMT-B classes are offered at night so people can keep their day jobs until finding work as an emt... this class, being every day for two weeks, seems like it would make it impossible to do that. Plus, wouldn't it take 6ish weeks to get your NREMT certs back and go to work?

 

[medic417]

My question about this is, assuming the training is adequate/you could learn everything in this format, how would one support oneself while taking a class like this? Many EMT-B classes are offered at night so people can keep their day jobs until finding work as an emt... this class, being every day for two weeks, seems like it would make it impossible to do that. Plus, wouldn't it take 6ish weeks to get your NREMT certs back and go to work?

Take a 2 week vacation from regular job. Then return to work after class while you await your certs. NR shows up within days so then it really depends on your state on how long before they recognize you.

 

[Kale]

My question about this is, assuming the training is adequate/you could learn everything in this format, how would one support oneself while taking a class like this? Many EMT-B classes are offered at night so people can keep their day jobs until finding work as an emt... this class, being every day for two weeks, seems like it would make it impossible to do that. Plus, wouldn't it take 6ish weeks to get your NREMT certs back and go to work?

Welllllll... if you couldn't take a two week leave of absence from your job, presumably you wouldn't sign up for a two week intensive academy and would instead opt for the CC option.

As I said before, the overwhelming majority of the people in my Unitek course fell into one of the following categories - military, defense contractors, law enforcement and firefighters. Pretty much all of these guys had been sent to the program by their place of employ, on their employer's dime.

As for the 6ish weeks turnaround time - my course graduated in mid October, which meant that we were not on the same schedule as all the folks graduating from EMT programs in the CCs, so it seemed the wait time was pretty reduced. It took a couple of days for NREMT to receive and review the skills exam submitted by Unitek and then approve me to take the written test. I was able to get a test appointment a few days later after I'd spent some time studying. It took maybe a week more for NREMT to let me know I'd passed it and then maybe a week beyond that to actually get my card in the mail. As for my state cert, as soon as I had my national reg card in hand all I needed to do was fax it (along with the application and my ID) over to my state office and they actually gave me my state cert number over the phone. So yeah, it takes some time to get everything in order, but not too terribly long.

 

[emtME]

Welllllll... if you couldn't take a two week leave of absence from your job, presumably you wouldn't sign up for a two week intensive academy and would instead opt for the CC option.

As for the 6ish weeks turnaround time - my course graduated in mid October, which meant that we were not on the same schedule as all the folks graduating from EMT programs in the CCs, so it seemed the wait time was pretty reduced. It took a couple of days for NREMT to receive and review the skills exam submitted by Unitek and then approve me to take the written test. I was able to get a test appointment a few days later after I'd spent some time studying. It took maybe a week more for NREMT to let me know I'd passed it and then maybe a week beyond that to actually get my card in the mail. As for my state cert, as soon as I had my national reg card in hand all I needed to do was fax it (along with the application and my ID) over to my state office and they actually gave me my state cert number over the phone. So yeah, it takes some time to get everything in order, but not too terribly long.

Oh that's nowhere near as bad as I thought. How soon afterwards were you able to work- for example, as soon as you knew you'd passed the NREMT but did not yet have the card? After passing your practical but before the written? Sorry, I'm still kind of blurry about how the end of it all works out.

I'm actually dropping my Ph.D. to do this, so I originally asked the "how does one support oneself" question because dropping my Ph.D. also means dropping my income source, until I am able to get hired as an EMT. Getting through the course quickly (yet still understanding the material) and able to work quickly is therefore very important to me. I've found a 3 week accelerated course I'm considering so it's been interesting to read others' experiences.

 

[Kale]

Oh that's nowhere near as bad as I thought. How soon afterwards were you able to work- for example, as soon as you knew you'd passed the NREMT but did not yet have the card? After passing your practical but before the written? Sorry, I'm still kind of blurry about how the end of it all works out.

Usually in order to work you need your state cert, and you usually can't get your state cert until you've got your NREMT card in hand (which again, you can only get after you've passed both your practical - which should be administered in your EMT course - and your written. Granted, I don't know how it works in every state, but my sense is that this is pretty much how it works everywhere. In AZ, where I live, as soon as I had my state cert I was eligible to work in AZ.

Thing is, even after all this is done, you still need to get hired and given the current climate (esp. as an EMT-B), this can take time. Even if you had all you needed in order to work the day you graduated from your class, it can still take months to finally get a job. I don't mean to be a downer, but if you're staking a whole lot on having your cert be your source of income quickly, you may need to reevaluate a little bit. I have no clue where you live and thus no clue what employment options you'd have as an EMT, but you may what to investigate that and get a sense of how long it takes to get hired in your local area so you approach this process realistically.

Good luck!

 

[Handsome Robb]

I'm actually dropping my Ph.D. to do this

Why on earth would you do that dude? Thats a huge waste of money to take up a job that pays less than a manager position at a McDonalds does.

 

[Chief Complaint]

Why on earth would you do that dude? Thats a huge waste of money to take up a job that pays less than a manager position at a McDonalds does.

Came in to post this exactly. I would advise against doing that, seriously.

 

[JPINFV]

Why on earth would you do that dude? Thats a huge waste of money to take up a job that pays less than a manager position at a McDonalds does.

 

[emtME]

lol @ everyone. :lol: I know I won't be paid crap for this... it's not the pay I'm after but the patient care experience. I'm switching from a Ph.D. in microbiology (read:trainwreck, b-o-r-i-n-g and life of unwanted lab bench work) to (hopefully) a career as a Physician Assistant. I need the patient care experience in order to get into PA school, and one way to get patient care experience... is to be an EMT. Unfortunately for me, none of the classes around me are doable, schedule-wise, without dropping the PhD first. Trust me, it's been a huge headache getting it all figured out... but I just generally am interested in medicine and caring for actual PATIENTS instead of lab samples. So a career change is necessary.

Oh- and maybe someone can tell me how realistic this is- but for the time in between getting certified and being able to find a real live bona fide paying EMT-B job... would volunteering as an EMT be helpful? In terms of getting experience under my belt, making sure I don't get rusty on skills, and ultimately, making myself more hireable/desirable?

PS- I totally just realized I completely threadjacked. Oops. I'm very sorry- not my intention.

 

[JPINFV]

I'm switching from a Ph.D. in microbiology (read:trainwreck, b-o-r-i-n-g and life of unwanted lab bench work)

I swear, if I ever have to do another FACS analysis (even if it sounds really cool. Lasers and all that) or PCR/gel again, I'm gonna kill someone.

 

[emtME]

I swear, if I ever have to do another FACS analysis (even if it sounds really cool. Lasers and all that) or PCR/gel again, I'm gonna kill someone.

Right?!?!?!

 

[pa132399]

Oh that's nowhere near as bad as I thought. How soon afterwards were you able to work- for example, as soon as you knew you'd passed the NREMT but did not yet have the card? After passing your practical but before the written? Sorry, I'm still kind of blurry about how the end of it all works out.

I'm actually dropping my Ph.D. to do this, so I originally asked the "how does one support oneself" question because dropping my Ph.D. also means dropping my income source, until I am able to get hired as an EMT. Getting through the course quickly (yet still understanding the material) and able to work quickly is therefore very important to me. I've found a 3 week accelerated course I'm considering so it's been interesting to read others' experiences.

you already have a ph.d. couldnt you try to get in med school. pt care expierience is helpful but with a degree so few have it might be an option for you