The 25th annual Firehouse Expo opened this week with a first time addition for EMS providers: a distinct EMS education program by the presenters of EMS Expo. Visitors had the option of attending both sides of the conference or separately attending just fire or EMS.

The main conference opened Thursday with a joint opening ceremony and keynote address. As one of the first speakers, Denis Onieal, superintendent of the National Fire Academy, began by highlighting the effect of the Baby Boom generation on healthcare and EMS. "It's a high demand for EMS that we're ill-equipped to handle," he warned.

The opening also featured a presentation by Dennis Compton of the Advocates for Fire Service-Based EMS Coalition, a controversial topic for those present who also support private and third-service EMS. Compton outlined the group's concerns about efforts in the EMS community in recent years due to possible effects on the fire service: efforts to launch a U.S. EMS Administration; to launch an EMS Congressional caucus; and to gain better access to federal grant money.

Conference attendee Ken Bouvier, past president of NAEMT and Administrative Liaison for EMS in New Orleans, commented to EMSResponder.com that fire based EMS doesn't work in all cities. In his opinion, "EMS does need its own separate caucus," he said, "and there are champions for that on Capitol Hill right now."

To learn more about EMS efforts to organize at the federal level visit the EMS Magazine publication, EMS on the Hill.

Education Spotlight:
Dealing with Difficult Students

This presentation by Paul Werfel was among the EMS education offerings Thursday.

"Students are more difficult than they used to be," Werfel contends. He and his attendees discussed what exactly has changed about EMS students in the past 20-30 years and how to handle the newer challenges.

Werfel is dismayed that patients today are thrilled when EMS providers are polite, because that should be standard. And that's the kind of thing agencies ask about when checking recommendations -- they never ask him about students' skills, he said. They want to know if the student is polite, personable, on time, etc.

"Education doesn't make you smart or make you nice," Werfel warned. "Never equate education with smarts."

Among the challenges today, Werfel noted, is that those receiving students into higher education are at the mercy of troubled primary education systems. He said his colleagues are seeing an increase in difficult students across the board, including in medical school, dentistry, etc.

He also noted that EMS students today tend to be younger and have less life experience than in the past, when many came from a military background. As a result, modern EMS classes can be hybrid audiences of both adult and child learners. And regardless of age, the participants agreed, students today seem to expect more hand-holding than in the past. They are also more likely to have parents who get involved and to seek attorneys when dismissed or disciplined

Other observations: students today are often good with technology but uncomfortable with face-to-face interaction; they find conflict, profanity and bad attitudes socially acceptable; and in school they have been taught to prepare for tests but not to think critically. This is important considering that skills are the easy part, Werfel said, and the hard part is the "art" of EMS -- understanding when to utilize those skills.

Werfel shared a few of his rules with the group: If a cell phone goes off in class, both that person and their classmates on either side lose points on the next exam; and students must dress for lab nights as if dressing for clinical rounds.

Another major point of the discussion was the importance of documentation when dealing with difficult students. Every attempt to counsel, assist, or make special accommodations needs to be documented to protect the instructor later. As in medicine -- "If you didn't document it, you didn't do it." Additional topics included academic integrity, counseling, dismissals, due process, learning disabilities and legal issues.

In closing, Werfel said, remember who you work for and need to protect -- future patients, your state, program and self, and even the problem student.

"When they are successful," he said, "you are successful."

Complete Event Coverage:

• http://cms.firehouse.com/content/expo.jsp