The Good, Bad and Ugly

Just returned from EMT class and hanging out at the station. I have not had a call in a week and am on the board as a driver now (from 0000 to 0600). Lots of midterms for students this week and they leave for spring break tomorrow. The college students in my EMT class looked BEATEN down (pale, sickly and tired – just the way one would hope to feel before jetting off to a warm island for boozing and…). The non-college students (33 of the 39 left in the class) are looking forward to a break from the EMT class for a week as we get a break as well.

The Good: The written test was (almost) fun and the practical stations (one trauma and one medical) were run smoothly and were well designed as they needed to test our assessment skills while avoiding giving us things to treat ( well, we know how to open an airway and give O2, but that’s about it). I did well on the written and 2 practicals. I stuck around while they were scored – 95% on the written and I “passed” both practicals (they are scored pass/fail). I still need to work on these stations, but I was pleased as I only missed a couple of points and they were for things I did but did not verbalize and were not caught by the examiner.

The Bad: I don’t know how other people did on the written, but for many the practical stations were a disaster given the statements I heard examiners make to each other (one guy claimed he had 8 people through his station and only 1 passed).

The Ugly: We have a post-mortem at the end of practicals and tonight I felt like I was in the wrestling room in junior high with the coach ripping us a new one for losing a meet we should have won. You know the drill: “Do you guys want to be here? ‘Cause if you do, I can’t tell. There is the door. Leave now if you don’t want to be here and all will be fine. However, if you stay, you best change your ways or next time…”. A good 15 min session of yelling aimed at getting us to work harder and/or take things more seriously. Comments like “you come to MY house to treat my family with skills like you showed tonight I’ll sue you until you have nothing left”. It was hard to judge people’s reaction to the “speech” but I assure you there were no smiles. I’m curious to see how he starts class off a week from Monday.

Thanks for taking the time to read!

DJ