On April 30, the second class of the Paramedic Training Institute created and delivered by the City of San Diego Fire-Rescue Department graduated on the top deck of the USS Midway. The class was made up of 15 SDFD firefighters who spent nearly eight months receiving instruction and performing in classroom, skills lab, clinical and field internship environments. The SDFD Paramedic Training Institute is the only fire department-based paramedic training institute operating in California. Graduation from the SDFD Paramedic Training Institute required successful completion of 1,299 hours divided among classroom, skills lab, clinical and field internship learning.
Once these firefighter graduates complete the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians Exam this spring, they will be fully licensed and ready to work in the field as paramedics by the end of June 2019.
“We are proud to offer this training to our firefighters,” said Fire-Rescue Chief Colin Stowell. “The opportunity to complete paramedic school presented by our department staff is a significant advantage which serves San Diegans by providing more paramedics in the field. Our first class resulted in 17 new paramedics for a grand total of 650 licensed paramedics.”
The classroom portion included lectures, discussions and workshops. In the skills lab portion, firefighters used state-of-the-art equipment including high fidelity mannequins, mannequin sleeves and arms, lung sound simulators and needle thoracotomy mannequins before performing skills on human patients.
The clinical portion of the training put firefighters in direct contact with patients at local hospitals where they worked alongside physicians, nurses and respiratory therapists in a number of hospital environments including emergency rooms, intensive and cardiac care units, operating rooms and labor and delivery units, to name a few.
For the field internship portion of the training, firefighters were assigned to an active instructor with AMR and SDFD advanced life support engine companies and performed the full scope of practice of an emergency medical technician/paramedic under the direct supervision of their instructor. Firefighters enhanced team leadership and decision-making skills during this portion of the training.
