Hybrid EMS Program Lets Students Train from Home

Aug. 28--Lenoir Community College is changing the way people view EMS and paramedic training.

Rather than force people into classrooms to watch a PowerPoint or to hear a lecture, the school's Continuing Education department has put the majority of the classroom portion of the course online.

"There's this mindset in EMS education, and I can 100 percent understand it, that you are teaching people how to save lives, and that needs to be taught in a seated classroom environment," said Justin Tilghman, director of the Public Safety Program at LCC. "There is some truth to that, but the reality is that there is some material that adult learners can learn on their own."

Students taking the school's hybrid EMS program still receive lectures from their instructors and still have to watch PowerPoints, they just do it at home.

Just like in a traditional classroom setting, students are tested at various intervals in the course to ensure they are actually learning the material.

"I think it gives us a lot more time and room to branch out," said Kevin Justice, an instructor and critical care coordinator at LCC. "Online, we can run multiple classes at once and we can interact with students more frequently."

Justice said the online format allows him to be more readily available to assist his students one on one as well.

"The great thing about the online course is it lets the students work at their own pace," he said.

If a student starts to struggle, the course instructors are available via phone or email at any time. Since students study at their own pace, Justice said it's easier to identify where they are struggling than it would be if they were teaching in a classroom environment.

"Rather than let them fail to understand something and build more on that bad information, we can see if someone is way out in left field and bring them back in before they start building on it," he said.

The structure of the hybrid course has led to students from several states coming to LCC not only for their initial training, but for the certifications they need to advance their career as well.

The school even coordinates with each student's home state for their clinical trials. In order to be an EMT or a paramedic, students have to spend a set number of hours in the back of an ambulance and in a hospital caring for patients.

LCC coordinates with doctors and hospitals in other states to allow students to do that part of their training close to home.

"it's really awesome because some of these doctors are national-level docs," Tilghman said. "It's not like we found this physician that said you can do it. We've got well-known medical professionals to work with."

While a large portion of the EMS program can be done online, there are some things that still must be taught in person.

"I can teach you how to intubate, but if you don't put your hands on a mannequin and do it, it's not going to do you any good," Tilghman said.

Students in each of LCC's Continuing Education EMS programs have to spend time at the school's training facility practicing medical care on mannequins.

Each mannequin acts mostly like a real patient and is cable of crying, screaming, blinking, seizing and more. They can also simulate a pulse and will react to different drugs.

"They basically do everything but sit up on their own," Tilghman said.

Students work with the dummies from the back of both real and model ambulances.

"It's really nice," said Johnny West, an EMT intermediate student training at LCC. West, along with several other members of his station in Georgia are in the middle of their next-to-last hands-on trip to LCC.

"That we actually get to see the patient respond to the care we are administering and not just having someone tell you how they are reacting really improves the training for us," he said.

Earlier this year, the Commission on Accreditation on Allied Health Education Programs awarded LCC a national accreditation as an EMS education facility.

The process of becoming accredited was a long one. Tilghman said the national site-visit team had to inspect the school's facilities and speak with students, teachers, graduates and employers before deciding if the school would be accredited.

In the end, the school passed the inspection with flying colors, making LCC the second school in North America to have received the distance education accreditation in EMS training.

"It was very clear this was very new to them," Tilghman said. "A normal visit from the national site-visit team takes about a day and a half. Ours took four days to complete."

The accreditation is a big deal for LCC. Students who complete the program can now take the National EMS Registry exam, an exam almost all 50 states require EMT's and paramedics to pass before they can apply for jobs.

With the national accreditation under the school's belt, Tilghman said he wants to expand the distance education program to include more specialized certifications and to allow students from more states to participate.

Dustin George can be reached at 252-559-1077 or Dustin.George@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @DLGeorge2.

Copyright 2015 - The Free Press, Kinston, N.C.