New course to offer students EMT experience
From Feb. 1 through May 2, the Campus Police will be sponsoring an emergency medical training course presented by Cypress Creek Emergency Medical System and coordinated by Rice students.
Upon completion of the not-for-credit course, participants will have completed 24 hours of emergency room internship and 24 hours of ambulance field work for eligibility for Emergency Medical Technician certification. Scheduled times are Tuesday and Thursday from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Two eight-hour sessions will be held on Saturdays.
Course coordinators are Jones College senior Mark Escott, Jones graduate Mike Escott, Jones freshman Noah Reiter and Hanszen College senior Tom Nguyen. Mark and Mike Escott are certified paramedics, and Reiter and Nguyen are certified EMTs.
The purpose of the course is to create a skilled emergency first-response team and to cut response time in case of illness or accidents requiring immediate care.
The First Responder Team would be composed of students, faculty and staff who would be qualified for the Texas emergency technician certification exam. Certification is good for four years and is transferable between states.
Immediate response is crucial in emergency situations, particularly in the treatment of sudden death or cardiac arrest, according to Mark Escott. Considering the typical ambulance response time of nine to ten minutes and additional time to arrive at the residential colleges or faculty buildings, chances of survival are significantly lowered. However, survival rates increase dramatically when treatment is received within five to six minutes of the incident.
While trauma and ambulance services are available for the university, distance and ambulance unavailability often result in potentially fatal delays. An on-campus First Responder Team would be able to respond within three or four minutes.
"[The First Responder Program] helps the student body because we're going to have trained health care providers immediately available on campus in the event of a medical emergency," Nguyen said.
The Campus Police was called 150 times last year on emergency illness and accident situations. On several occasions, the urgency of the situation was such that the police transported the patients to the hospital instead of waiting for medical response. Since the police are not trained to administer emergency medical care, the university could be held liable should a patient die before receiving treatment.
Basic EMT training covers entry-level medical training, including CPR, first aid, airway management, basic emergency rescue and trauma procedure and ambulance work. The addition of the program would remove the university from medical liability.
The program would be insured to cover all such liability and has the support of Vice President for Student Affairs Zenaido Camacho, Dean of Students Sarah Burnett, Health Education Director Cynthia Lanier and Campus Police Chief Mary Voswinkel.
Support for the program was overwhelming in a poll of the student body conducted last spring. Six hundred signatures in favor of the program were collected in one week. The budget for the program requires an initial $8,000, with $2,000-$3,000 per year for maintenance. However, some questions have been raised about the overall benefits to the Rice community, and the program still awaits university funding.
Other universities have already implemented emergency care programs. Mark Escott attended the National Collegiate EMS Conference at Villanova University last semester to gather information on program coordination. Some 150 colleges and universities are members of the NCEMSF, and others have programs without holding memberships.
Twenty students are currently enrolled in the course, and space remains available for further enrollment. By the 1996 fall semester, Rice should have a complete full-response team with representatives in most, if not all, residential colleges. The non-credit course costs $375, and the Human Performance and Health Sciences Department is considering offering the course in the fall.
Certification proves especially valuable to pre-medical students, who gain advance knowledge of procedure and patient communication.
"You do some work in the trenches and really get to know what medicine is about," Mark Escott said.
Participants would learn not only to conduct emergency room treatment in the field but would also provide non-emergency first aid and supplies within the colleges.
This item appeared in the News section of the January 26, 1996 issue.
Copyright © 1996 The Rice Thresher. All Rights
Reserved.
This document may be distributed
electronically, provided that it is distributed in its entirety
and includes this notice. However, it cannot be reprinted
without the express written permission of:
The Rice
Thresher, Rice University, 6100 Main, Houston, TX, 77005, USA.
The Thresher Online Project -- ethresh@rice.edu