For those who disagree with what I wrote in I am not the only one saying EMS education is Broken, go listen to the Confessions of An EMS Newbie podcast interview with Dr. Bryan Bledsoe.
Dr. Bledsoe is explaining the feedback he received from his publisher on why some people do not want to use his paramedic textbook –
Bledsoe’s book’s too sophisticated – the reading level’s too high – we don’t need to know that much stuff –
In other words, we are not trying to use the best textbook. We are dumbing down the curriculum and avoiding the textbooks that require thinking students and thinking educators.
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He is going to paramedic school. I asked him what book he’s using. He said, Not yours . . . The instructor said that your book’s just too hard. I can’t understand that. There’s more detail, but it’s written at an 11th grade reading level.
Dr. Bledsoe’s book is written at a level so that it can be understood by people who cannot yet graduate from high school. That is considered just too hard?
How is reading and understanding at the high school student level too hard?
We should not be asking, How low should our standards be?
We should be asking, What do our students need to understand to be able to take care of emergency patients safely?
We are worried about staffing and graduation rates and other nonsense.
Yes, these are nonsense, when compared with the only thing that matters.
What is best for the patient?
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This is the future of EMS.
Dr. Bledsoe points out that one of the problems with textbooks is that they are at least 5 years behind the current research, because of the amount of time involved in textbook writing, review, editing, publishing, and distribution to schools in time for the next semester class. This is EMS education training, we do not use fancy words, like semester. That thinking stuff is for those evil intellectuals.
If the textbook is expected to take at least 5 years from concept to classroom, then we need to have paramedic schools start demanding better textbooks now – that is if we want to have better textbooks in 5 years.
The current dismal state of EMS education training is the fault of the paramedic schools.
The paramedic schools are catering to the lowest common denominator.
We need to throw these incompetent administrators out of the paramedic schools.
These incompetent administrators are killing patients by churning out dangerous medics.
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At the end of the podcast, Dr. Bledsoe has some nice things to say about me.
Thank you, Dr. Bledsoe. I learned a lot of what I know from you, not from people saying that knowing just a little bit is good enough.
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