Results are in:  rough data in new post and copied here.

Alright so I have gathered the data and have some rough numbers. Most of the data comes from here, which gave me a much better sample group I feel then just using school (which would have been more one sided I feel).

I had 52 responses. Of that, 17 are EMT-B, 6 are EMT-I, and 29 are Paramedics. Of that 53, 19 are EMS instructors.

Of that, 39 went to a program that did not use ambulances for classroom use. 13 went to a program that did. Of the 52, 9 had a program that had an ambulance simulator.

Of the people that said yes, 10 felt that the ambulance use enhanced their program, 3 said no. The scale 1-10 on how often used varied from 1 to 8, average being 3.6. The average confidence on first ambulance ride outside of classroom (ride along or full crew member) was 6.07. When asked if respondents felt if the added expensive of an ambulance was worthwhile to the program, 10 said yes, 3 said no.

Of the responded that answered no if their program used ambulances, 23 said they felt the quality of education would increase with ambulance use, while 16 said no. 22 said the added expense is worthwhile, while 17 said no. Confidence on first ride was 4.95.

I did have a page for instructors to answer, but it didn't link right. I can infer from their responses for the page that missed, as it was mostly redundant questions anyways.






I have and received permission from the mods to post this.

I am a paramedic student, and part of my current internship is an original research project.  I have put together a survey on the use of ambulances in an education setting.  For the purpose of the survey, ambulances are only considered if they are fully operated by the students.  Otherwise, ambulances are just considered an ambulance.  I would love responses from every level and for police and fire medics also.

The survey can be found link removed.

Feel free to pass it along, the more responses I get, the better.  Feel free to leave comments here or message me.  I did not leave a comment box in the survey just to keep the data easier to compile.  When I "finish" the research I will gladly publish the results.  

For those interested in the background, the program I am has a fleet of 6 ambulances, some of them quiet old.  As they tend to be donated to us, they can be pretty beat up.  Between instructors and students, we do our best to keep them working.  The main use for them is a class the program offers to EMTs that uses them for BLS scenarios where crews respond to calls.  The ambulances allow us to respond all around campus and in the surrounding area.  Our student association also occasionally uses them when providing medical standby for events and for show and tell at schools.  This also offers an increased presence for the school and advertising in the metro area we are located.  However, as of late they have become the subject to a few different conversations if they are worthwhile to the program.

I for one feel they offer an incredible learning opportunity for the fresh EMTs in our program.  The class that uses them are designed to give students the base knowledge on ambulance operation and running BLS calls so that they do not have to start with zero experience in the required internship.  That being said, they are expensive to upkeep and can become a liability.  While it is amazing having a huge fleet, it may be more worthwhile to cull the fleet down and update or replace with newer rigs.  The survey is to answer the if they offer something worthwhile to students.  Moving forward, the project will potentially move to what is the most cost effective approach to aquiring and maintaining a fleet.

Done. Good luck, I went through this a few times getting my degree. I'm also starting the EFOP next week and will be starting the first of four applied research projects.

Done did.

Hit it.

A few of our instructors are big on research.  Lots of papers have been written already, many more to come haha.

Best of luck with EFOP.


And thank you to everyone else who has taken the time to do the survey, I really appreciate it.

Hit it. Good luck.

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Hit.

Where I got my cert, it was all about training to pass the exam. They said we'd learn the important stuff on the truck.

They were right.


That said, it shouldn't be that way.

Done.

Hitted it.

FWIW in my EMT-B(waaaay back in 1990 at Northeastern Univ in MA) an ambulance was used just for lifting/moving/stretcher practicals.

Upon my hire to NYC EMS in 92 there was no ambulance used in training in the two month academy.

In my current EMS job no ambulances used at all during our 3 month academy save for a skills eval on lifting/moving.

As an EMS instructor for a LE Agency we had an ambulance at our Academy. Seemed like a good idea at the time. When our recruits were cert'd as EMTs we(the EMS staff) would participate in the final stages or the recruit program with a cardiac arrest scenario complete with agitaed family. The recruits were evaluated on their scene control and pt assessment/CPR//AED skills. They had to move the aided out to the bus

But with the fleet needs being what they were it was taken and put out on the street to make up for fx busses. We eventually got one back, but it was a mechanical wreck of a decert'd bus that was next to useless.

For my EMT-P there was no ambulances either. I wouldn't see the need for a simulator as ideally most EMT-P students should already have some time under their belt.

I completed the survey.

I went through the entire paramedic program twice (and passed both times )

In the city where I spent about 28 years, you couldn't apply to a paramedic program unless you had worked as an EMT Intermediate for at least a year, so having an ambulance simulator was not a real big deal. It was a very high call volume system, so everybody in the paramedic program had run many hundreds if not thousands of calls prior to attending. That being said, they did have a simulator.

I don't think this survey is going to provide valid data. You have tainted the results from the outset by providing your opinion prior to the user taking the survey. The only real quantifiable question was the 1-10 scale for confidence factor on your first ride along, but realistically no one is going to recall these emotions accurately years to decades after the event. In the end the effectiveness of the ambulance as a training aid is only going to be as good as the instructor is capable of being anyway. A poor instructor with an ambulance is always going to be worse than a great instructor with no ambulance, so the ambulance really is an irrelevant contributor to the quality of the education.

Unless of course this is a sham survey and the real intent is to evaluate participation rates or reaction to the survey. In which case, bravo.

To be fair, I only gave my opinion in the post and not in the survey  It was only typed up on here for sake of discussion.  The rest of the people (Not an ar15) did not see it and were just asked to take a survey about ambulance use in EMS education.  With it being summer, the amount of students on campus to answer it was limited, hence sharing it here.

I agree that the most important data is the 1-10 confidence rating, which is what I was aiming for.  The rest is more demographic information.  The survey is just a small part of a bigger research project.

And you are right that an ambulance will make up for a bad instructor, but just about nothing will help with that.

Hit. Tag for results.

Would a better target for this kind of survey be the students themselves, perhaps within a week of their first ride-along? Are there any Basic classes happening at any local community colleges or fire depts? It would not be a quick way to get your assignment done, but arguably it would provide more accurate data. That would allow you to establish a proper control as well.

Done.  An ambulance was used during my EMT-Basic training in '79.  We were all very seasoned veterans by the time Intermediate and Paramedic certifications became available to us.  So, an ambulance was really not necessary for our advanced life support training.

I did pass it around to students in our program and to some surrounding ones.  That being said being summer, its a much smaller group then a normal semester, so I was stuck with a much smaller group to gather from.  Also I wanted to get opinions from educators on their opinion also.



We have an entire class after EMT-B that uses the ambulances and run scenarios on and off campus.  It was one of the most fun classes I have had.  They do use them in other classes, but not as heavily.  We also had a student who years ago cut apart an ambulance and brought it into the building piece by piece and reassembled it in one of our lab rooms.  It is great for teaching EMT students loading and unloading on nice flat ground before letting them loose to the world.

Done. Looking forward to the results. Good fucking luck with medic school though! It's a BITCH!

Alright so I have gathered the data and have some rough numbers.  Most of the data comes from here, which gave me a much better sample group I feel then just using school (which would have been more one sided I feel).

I had 52 responses.  Of that, 17 are EMT-B, 6 are EMT-I, and 29 are Paramedics.  Of that 53, 19 are EMS instructors.

Of that, 39 went to a program that did not use ambulances for classroom use.  13 went to a program that did.  Of the 52, 9 had a program that had an ambulance simulator.

Of the people that said yes, 10 felt that the ambulance use enhanced their program, 3 said no.   The scale 1-10 on how often used varied from 1 to 8, average being 3.6.  The average confidence on first ambulance ride outside of classroom (ride along or full crew member) was 6.07. When asked if respondents felt if the added expensive of an ambulance was worthwhile to the program, 10 said yes, 3 said no.

Of the responded that answered no if their program used ambulances, 23 said they felt the quality of education would increase with ambulance use, while 16 said no.  22 said the added expense is worthwhile, while 17 said no.  Confidence on first ride was 4.95.

I did have a page for instructors to answer, but it didn't link right.  I can infer from their responses for the page that missed, as it was mostly redundant questions anyways.