Anonymous asked: I gotta say, it sounds like you got some pretty shitty EMT training. I'm a pharmacy school graduate and we were always taught how to treat/diagnose ALL patients, if their ethnicity/gender/etc required something different than the standard. You should get your money back.
Hi, anon, thanks for your input. I’m glad your pharmacy schooling was so high quality, it’s great that you were educated in how to treat everyone, and it’s unfortunate that not all textbooks/courses are up to that level. I was personally taught in a relatively small town with an admittedly less-than-diverse population, so it’s possible that there were effect from that. Also, from what I know pharmaceutical schooling is intended to be a career, while–contrary to popular opinion–many EMTs work on a volunteer basis, or work as an EMT in addition to another job. It’s completely feasible that the higher level education in emergency medical services, like Advanced EMT training or paramedic training, is more complete in these matters.
That said, the class I took was thorough in all other areas, and with prompting the teachers were both able and willing to give answers for the treatment of patients of various ethnicity/gender/etc. I did outside research to confirm what they told me, given that they were speaking from experience and not from the textbook. The flaws were not in the specific course, but rather in the official material–textbooks lacking explanations of how to administer CPR to a large-chested individual, or suggestions of ways to communicate with someone who either speaks a different language or who is nonverbal for some reason, just for example.
Also, I would like to politely express that I worked hard in that class, which I took in addition to a full class load at my college, and my family does not often have seven hundred dollars to drop on extra things, even something as useful as medical training. The teachers worked hard to deliver a quality education, and the inherent flaws in the textbook were not their fault. While I’m aware that this comment was in all likelihood intended to be completely benign, and even if it wasn’t I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, it did not completely come across that way. I agree that it is a serious problem that not all medical fields are as on the ball as pharmacy school evidently is, but it is neither my fault nor the fault of the men and women who taught me–indeed, my teachers had clearly gone to some effort to ensure they were capable of treating everyone. Again, thank you for your input, and I hope you have a lovely day.
