By Erik Squire

The Beacon conducted an interview with Michael White, one of the EMS Program’s terrific students. This is Michael’s 4th semester with the program and when he graduates (the same goes for most of his classmates) he hopes to be a Paramedic. He is already an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). In fact all the students in the program are EMTs, seeing as it is a prerequisite to get into the program (no worries; SMCC offers courses for that too). Michael took some time out of his busy schedule to fill us in on the program.
The program is five semesters long; it is two falls, two springs, and one summer semester. Clinicals cover the last three semesters. For clinicals students have to do a total of 690hrs between hospital time in the ER, respiratory therapy, critical care, labor and delivery, and in the field service on an ambulance. On top of all that they also have to do 20hrs a semester in an EMT basic class helping out with the new guys and gals.
The program opens every fall. There are two classes; there’s a senior class and a freshman class. There are only 25 spots per class and they fill up fast. Unlike courses such as ENG-100 (which are offered every semester), EMS courses are only offered during particular semesters. Because of this, if a student doesn’t stick with it and misses a course or fails out of a course they get pushed back a whole year. As stated previously, there are only two classes total.
The first semester primarily recaps what students have learned in their basics. The first spring semester is about airways and all the skills that one’s required to know about them. Examples of the things students learn about air ways are: intubations, cricothyrotomys, chest decompressions, ventilating, and how to manage an airway.
The summer semester is designated to trauma: trauma scenarios, back boarding, and splinting.
The final fall semester has one of the heaviest workloads. It is seventeen credits and students learn about medical emergencies, pediatric emergencies, advanced cardiology, and about all the different types of emergencies in the field. Students also learn how to treat these emergencies accordingly.
In most cases, students who go into these courses are people who want to make a career out of being a paramedic (seeing as they are already EMTs). There are people who are advanced EMTs (for longer than most students have been alive). There are combat medics who now want to be medics in the civilian world. Then there are some who have only been a basic for a few years and want to go for that next level.
Some of the things that trained paramedics will be qualified to do include administering a large variety of drugs, administering AKGs (where they check out the heart and treat based on what they find), and performing different types of advanced airway procedures. A big part of the program is centered on trying to master basic skills, concept formation, and figuring out what’s wrong with a patient based on how he/she is presenting. Graduates will then be able to treat these circumstances accordingly.
Michael wanted to make it clear that it’s important for students to get into the mindset that “they’re the one in charge when responding.” Students have to realize that there’s no one that is higher than them out in the field. Paramedics are the ones that people look to while in the field, they are that leader.
As to what Michael thinks of the EMS Program: He really loves it! He says the instructors are great and he loves how the course is hands on. Working with high-tech mannequins has been interesting for him as well. Michael appreciates that the course has a lot of group working, and added that the clinicals are also good. “It started off (in the first couple of semesters) with more PowerPoints, but now that I’m in my senior year, the program is starting to cover more real life scenarios. I really like the program so far.”