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NEWS | May 28, 2019

EMT recertification ensures JBLE has responders

By Airman 1st Class Marcus M. Bullock 633 Air Base Wing Public Affairs

With the potential to be the first responder to an accident, members of the 633d Medical Group, who have their emergency medical technician training, have a crucial role to play in preserving life. That is why members of the Education Center push such a rigorous recertification course to train their EMTs.

 

The week-long training course consists of different hands-on skills practice and class-based learning. They will also do a mass casualty exercise, a 50-question written test, and then a skills evaluation in which they have to perform a trauma scenario and a medical scenario.

 

When asked why the course is so rigorous, U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Samantha Taylor, 633d MDG EMT site coordinator for Langley Air Force Base, explained that the course has to be extensive because most of the time, those who have to fill the role of an EMT on Langley AFB do not work specifically as an EMT – they have a different medical job.

 

“What we need to do to recertify them is to make sure they’re getting all of the information that we need them to have,” said Taylor. “That’s why we make the course so rigorous and hands-on and repetitive, because we want to make sure we are certifying that these medics, who aren’t practicing as EMTs, are competent and can be trained to work as an EMT if they’re pulled to [do so].”

 

In order to make sure that members getting their EMT recertification receive the most realistic training, the education and training center uses medical simulators that have the capability to mimic human functions.

 

“We can program the simulator to replicate a live person,” said Raymond Jernigan, 633d MDG Air Force Medical Modeling and Simulations Training simulations operator. “It gives them a different environment to practice and learn in that’s not as stressful, but it gives them the ‘practice as we play’ mentality.”

 

Along with the medical simulators, the education center uses human volunteers to help simulate a real-world victim. With human volunteers, members training to receive their recertification can interact more with these volunteers than with medical simulators.

 

“We’ve learned that when the EMTs go and do their hands-on portion, they’re more likely to interact if they have somebody physically there, as opposed to a mannequin,” added Taylor. “If they have a real person there, they can really ask the questions and get all of the information they need to know from the physical person that’s there and we think they end up scoring better.”

 

The importance of EMT recertification cannot be stressed enough when those trained as EMTs might be the first to deliver medical attention to someone who may need it. It is vital for medical professionals to feel confident in their skills in order to administer emergency medical care.

 

“We want to provide safe and trusted patient care here,” concluded Taylor. “It’s important to make sure that everybody knows exactly what they need to do in these scenarios and situations so we can make sure we are providing high quality patient care to every patient.”