Palm Beach State College Update:

Nothing really has changed.   Our didactic portion is fully online and virtual. My original plan of having small limited groups of students come to campus for labs is not going to happen.  Other than the occasional visit to my office, all staff and instructors are not coming to campus and using Zoom/Skype for meetings at least once a week (more if needed).   I would feel like an extreme hypocrite if I did that and I would feel simply awful if community spread occurred as a result of that.  

With the latest national lockdown remaining in place through (at least) April, I am slowly starting to worry about starting new cohorts in the fall.  That would be very not good.  

If any of you would like to reach out to me to discuss or bounce ideas off each other, or to get more info about what we are doing, please do not hesitate to email me @ Keelerm@palmbeachstate.edu.

Until then, stay safe everyone.

Jennifer Truman wrote:

I know there have been some hospitals that have already removed students from clinical rotations.  Has anyone had their field internship (Fire Department, EMS agencies) remove students from rotations?

Jennifer,

All agencies in Palm Beach County have suspended students riding at FR.  I would be very surprised to learn that any in the state are currently allowing field internship to continue.

Matt

Update on Palm Beach State's Plan

Covid-19 EMS Plan Summary

Core staff will meet Tuesday, March 24th to finalize plan and details.   Classes will resume on Wednesday, March 25th (A Shift) and will run Monday through Friday (shift schedule) as outlined below:

Didactic - 

•Lectures will be 100% online.   This is already in place and occurring through Blackboard.  

•Exams will be given via EMS Testing (as is current practice).   Leads will adjust scheduling of these exams to fit individual cohorts.   Exams will be timed and password protected to prevent students from other classes from having access. 

•Leads/OSE’s already have a system in place for communication with students via email/phone/text.  

•Each lead will utilize Collaborate via Blackboard once per week, scheduled at their discretion to provide students with weekly interaction.  This can be adjusted as needed. 

•All students will temporarily receive an Incomplete (I) for their grade.  This will be adjusted as needed with students grades being changed once they complete the required material. 

Psychomotor (Lab) – 

•All scheduled students for clinical/field hours report to campus and remain in groups of 6, plus 1 instructor.  

•NO interaction between labs.  Students will remain in a particular room for the duration of lab.  

•6:1 ratio will be adhered to at all times. 

•Number of labs and the duration each day (4 or 8 hours) will be dependent on number of lab instructors available.  

•Paramedic focus will be on PHTLS and then PALS.

•The EMT “big” room will only be utilized by one group.  

•Appendix G numbers will be adjusted as CoAEMSP evaluates. 

Clinical – 

•Students will resume clinical rotations (hospital and FR) at the discretion and notification received by each Hospital and Fire Department. 

•Appendix G numbers will be adjusted as CoAEMSP evaluates. 

•Clinical Instructors and Fire Rescue Instructors will utilize the State direction that allows for 50% of clinical and field hours in a simulated setting by coming to campus and utilizing lab room.  This will be adjusted based up space and instructor availability. 

•Our Achilles heel.  Cannot move forward with new cohorts until current students can return to clinical sites.

All bullet points listed above are subject to change (daily if needed).

My program is shut down this week and next week is spring break anyway.  Our goal is to be back in class on the 30^th of March.  All clinical and internship sites are still available for Paramedic students at this time.  The EMT students were still a couple of weeks from starting.  Several of the clinical sites have stated they would not allow students once they had their first confirmed case. 

My students are dedicated and have expressed concern about being closed a week or even longer.   And one of our concerns is that a lapse of time will only create a larger problem of having to remediate and review after we return to class.  With that being said, audio lectures, PowerPoints, and notes have been uploaded for the students.  We will actively be using case studies, and discussion boards, quizzes, virtual ride alongs, and virtual simulation for online classes.  As with others, this is great for the didactic portion and we will play catch up with the lab and scenario portion. 

Hopefully this will go AWAY soon.

Tina

Hi Ted,

I sent this to all the Program Directors listed on the DOH website.  This should give some insight as to what we are doing at Palm Beach State...

I hope this email finds you well.  I have been reaching out to as many Program Directors as I can to exchange ideas, action plans, and create communication among EMS Programs throughout the State.   Though our programs may differ in size, location, and demographics, we will all be affected by the inevitability of a long-ish disruption Covid-19 will present to us and ultimately our students.     It is my hope that whatever contingency planning you have done or will do can be augmented with idea’s from another institution.  

Palm Beach State College has instituted (or will institute) the following:

• On Thursday, March 11^th, I made the decision to suspend all Clinical rotations to my entire program (EMT & Paramedic).  This proved to be very proactive, as the following day, our largest fire rescue partner, Palm Beach County Fire Rescue removed all students until further notice.   Also that same day, PBSC suspended onsite instruction effective 3/13 @ 5pm campus wide, with a move to begin online instruction on 3/23.
• My Department Chair has instructed our Paramedic and EMT faculty to develop contingency schedules to complete our program with a return date of March 23^rd, April 27^th, and May 26^th.   This will be subject to change depending on the length students will be away from the program. 
• Because all our handout material and approx. 15% of our program is via Blackboard,  all lecture material has been uploaded to each classes Blackboard platform.   All students will be provided access to all lecture material including the PowerPoints.  They will be given a morning and an afternoon assignment/schedule that will compress 2 days of lecture into 1 day. Given that the students are already prepared to dedicate a full day to the program on all their scheduled class days, they will be substituting didactic material in the place of the scheduled lab portion for the day.  While this will help the students didactically,  this compressed didactic content equates to the students having to “catch up” on lab skills and scenario materials upon their return.  We will then follow the pattern of doing a full day of lab content until all skills are made up.  After all lab material is caught up to the didactic schedule, we will resume a normal schedule of didactics in the morning and labs in the afternoon. 
• The lead instructors will remain available through both school email as well as cell phone/text message to allow questions to be asked/answered along the way.  
• PBSC utilizes EMS Testing for exams.   Our intent is to make all written tests available in an online format so the students can test remotely.    Tests will be timed and only open to a specific cohort at a specific date/time.   
• Our big hurdles moving forward:
  • CoAEMSP Appendix G numbers – We are thinking VERY outside the box here and are still formulating our plan.   The last email rec’d from CoA suggested that they are not deviating from their requirements.  While this may change in the future, we are operating under the mindset that they will stay true to their statement.  That said, my Psychomotor Lab Coordinator is developing a plan depending on the length of time students will be without Labs.
  • Clinical Rotations – This is our Achilles heel (as is with nearly all programs).    We really are at a standstill until our clinical sites (Hospital and Fire Rescue) allow us to return.     I have 3 paramedic cohorts in class who are scheduled to graduate August 18^th.   I am struggling to find any scenario in which that happens thereby forcing current students to continue on into the fall semester which in turn affects additional cohorts that would start around the same time.

Please feel free to respond with your thoughts or ideas.   Be safe!