A Couple Of Reviews

In the spirit of keeping up with my professional responsibility to keep my paramedic certification up both for National Registry and Texas, I’ve been attending some continuing education lately.  As such, I thought I’d pass on a few comments about some of the hours I’ve attended in the month of November.

I was fortunate enough to attend and speak at the Texas EMS Conference in Fort Worth. Fort Worth is one of my favorite downtowns in Texas.  It’s clean, relatively compact, and there are plenty of hotel and food options within walking distance of the convention center. More importantly, the Texas EMS Conference is one of the best conference out there hands down.  The Texas conference provides up to 15 hours of continuing education over the Monday – Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  Additionally, there are preconference classes available the weekend before. The Texas conference also has an exhibit hall that rivals the two national conferences. Unlike the national conferences, though, Texas really strives to educate attending EMS providers. While Texas presents a few of the usual national conference speakers known more for entertainment than educational content, the Texas conference really strives to educate and highlights quite a few local providers and educators whose content is first rate.  This year seemed to have even more of a focus on care under fire, with presentations by Fort Worth police officers, a trauma surgeon who responded with the Dallas Police Department to mass shooting in downtown Dallas, and a former Army Ranger physician assistant now attending medical school.  Unlike many conferences, these presentations on care under fire were thoughtful and heavy on current medicine — and with very little emphasis on “heroism” or the “thank you for your service” mindset that often permeates the EMS community.  Truth be told – the Texas conference is a great bargain for a phenomenal mix of continuing education and networking. Additionally, both downtown Fort Worth and the Stockyards district offer some great food and entertainment venues, including Texas music and food.

On a different note, I needed to knock out a half hour of continuing education on anaphylaxis for my National Registry Paramedic certification. I decided to find an online resource to count for this.  And in the end, I made a huge mistake. I decided to use JB Learning, who offers a half hour online class on anaphylaxis. The course material itself, even though billed for advanced life support providers, was beyond basic.  There was heavy emphasis (and rightfully so) on the use of epinephrine.  There were brief mentions of nebulized bronchodilators and intravenous fluid boluses.  And zero mention of an antihistamine such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl), let alone a H2 blocker as some clinically aggressive EMS systems use — and as supported by evidence.

If that was the only issue, I’d shrug my shoulders and just accept the danged half hour of continuing education and move on.  But the platform itself is beyond miserable.  JB Learning now markets all of its continuing education, even when sold separately, through it’s “Recert” platform, which is marketed as a one stop solution for EMS providers’ continuing education and tracking. (Truth be told, keeping up with your continuing education is a basic responsibility of being licensed in any profession. If you need that much help in tracking your hours, I’m not sure I want to trust you with the responsibilities of being a healthcare professional.) So, in short, you pretty much have to use JB Learning’s “Recert” platform.  And that platform requires a skills verification — which isn’t mentioned until you’re into the course.  After a bit of consulting with tech support, I’m not sure whether this half hour is or isn’t going to work for me, especially since I haven’t been able to go back and download the skills verification, which supposedly I’ll upload and then, in theory, get a certificate.

For years, Apple prided itself on the slogan “It just works.”  To my friends at JB Learning, who are trying to market themselves as a one stop solution for both initial and continuing education for EMS professionals, “It just works” doesn’t apply to y’all yet. On the positive note, I’m only out $6.95.  On a negative note, I’ve spent more than the half hour of continuing education in terms of getting a certificate for continuing education credit — and I still don’t have one.  As the old adage says, let the buyer beware.