The first course of our curriculum includes an innovative early clinical immersion in which students integrate their medical knowledge and skills and become certified Emergency Medical Technicians.
Hands on EMT Training
The first course of our curriculum includes an innovative early clinical immersion in which students integrate their medical knowledge and skills and become certified Emergency Medical Technicians
The course content specific to the Emergency Medical Technician curricular component was developed using the New York State Department of Health Emergency Medical Technician curriculum with added elements of the basic biomedical, social, and clinical science content essential for medical student education.
This approach to ‘knowledge in action’ promotes the early transformation of students from medical bystanders to active participants in meaningful patient encounters. Within the first few weeks of school, students learn to assess patients with a wide variety of medical, traumatic, and behavioral problems, while also learning appropriate cognitive, communication, interventional, and team-based skills. They learn how to interact effectively with patients of diverse ages and social backgrounds and with a variety of health care professionals, both in the field and in the hospital
Through ambulance runs, students also follow patients into the emergency rooms and gain appreciation for health professionals on the receiving end, including the nurses, attending physicians, residents, registration staff, and patient care associates. In a culminating exercise, students participate in a simulated disaster at the Randall’s Island which focuses on a coordinated, team-based response to patients in need.
Week 1: The Clinical Thinker – Approaches to Contextual Learning
Interpret vital signs, airway management (oral and nasopharyngeal airways)
Correlation of surface and deep anatomical structures, physiology cell membranes, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy rule; caring for the caregiver
Obtain vital signs; lifting and urgent moves; certification in basic cardiac life support (BLS) and use and maintenance of the automated external defibrillator (AED)
Initial engagement with a patient; reflection; physics of ultrasound, Doppler flow, ultrasonography of arteries and veins
Week 2: To Breathe or Not to Breathe
Management of burns and inhalation injuries
Pulmonary physiology, pathophysiology of COPD and pneumonia, principles of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, principles of hemodynamics, structure and function of autonomic nervous system, introduction to United States health care system
Assess a patient for wheezing , administer bronchodilators; oral suctioning, use of bag-valve-mask, pocket mask, communication, documentation and assessment in the field; oxygen delivery: non-rebreather and nasal cannula; assembly of oxygen cylinder
Understanding a patient's chief complaint; hypothesis driven pulmonary exam; ultrasound of diaphragm and pleura
Week 3: The Heart in Theory and Practice (The Beat Goes On)
Assessment of patient with cardiac and respiratory emergencies
Pathophysiology of ischemic heart disease, cardiac and mediastinal anatomy, histology and chest imaging; cardiac physiology and action potentials; biases in health care
Management of patients with variety of medical emergencies; ambulance field experience
Gathering the history of present illness with standardized patients, hypothesis driven cardiac exam; ultrasound of cardiac windows and flow
