Does education improve performance?

[Guest guest]

I offer these further comments on the subject of the influence of education

on the performance of EMTs and Paramedics. I apologize for using myself as

an example, but I am the person I know best.

When I became an EMT I had been a practicing lawyer for 10 years. Before

that I had earned a Bachelor's degree in Music Education and served in the

Army for two years part of which was as an infantryman. I soon moved from

infantryman to company clerk because of my education and then on to court

reporting. My feet and back appreciated my education.

After the Army I went to law school. I didn't have any money nor did my

family, so I played the piano in bars, pitched parcel post at the post office

during the Christmas holidays, and rode horses for a trainer I knew to pay

for my tuition and books. I also served subpoenas on people and learned to

keep my fingers out of slamming doors. My familiarity with the piano keyboard

helped me to be able to start IVs in dim light; my experience in serving

subpoenas taught me to " read " a neighborhood and a scene for possible

dangers; I rode horses for everybody from society matrons to ranchers and

learned to communicate with them all. And as I learned about torts, criminal

law, family law and contracts, my understanding of the human condition grew.

My experiences as a lawyer gave me the confidence to learn a completely new

field when I decided to become a volunteer EMT because, you see, lawyers make

their living by quickly soaking up information on a variety of subjects,

analyzing it, writing about it, and developing plans to represent their

clients based upon newly gained information and communicating well with

others. Critical thinking and communications skills are absolutely necessary

for the lawyer as they are for the EMT and Paramedic.

I am confident that the critical thinking skills I learned as a lawyer

carried over into my practices as an EMS caregiver, so much so that I quickly

found myself teaching others about a field I was relatively new in. I was

able to do that through bringing all my previous educational experiences to

bear in focusing upon new problems. Experience in communicating with a jury

during a trial is not so different from communicating with students in a

class or with a patient who doesn't understand why she needs to go to the

hospital.

That's where education becomes a plus and makes a difference. It enables one

to MAXIMIZE the lessons learned from experience and distill them into

improved performance. As a judge I once knew said, 20 years of experience as

a jackass produces a very experienced jackass. A jackass can't change, but a

human being can with both education and experience.

Education also enables one to have the confidence to do one's job at a higher

level. Education is broadening in so many different ways, many of them

tangential to the fundamental skills and knowledge competencies we all have

as EMTs and Paramedics.

Education can also have its drawbacks. There's no fool like an educated

fool. Sometimes too much confidence can be off-putting to others. Education

can lead to arrogance, and all of us occasionally need a reality check,

myself included.

I look back on the volunteer service where I got my experience and the

educational backgrounds of its members. Seventy-five percent of them had

either agricultural degrees or some college work in agriculture. They were

farmers and ranchers, but they weren't dumb. As a matter of fact, they had

to be VERY smart to make it. One was a banker. Several were school teachers

and there were some businesspeople and a postman. Almost all had education

of some sort above high school in fields only peripherally related to EMS.

But then, EMS is a wonderfully complex world where every educational and

practical experience eventually will bear fruit.

I shall never give up the battle to convince others of the value of education

to EMS providers. Experience is valuable. No argument there. But education

can help one to use one's experience to the max. Outside volunteerism,

education is now a given requirement. And while it's never an EASY process,

it will become more and more accessible as we develop strategies for use in

the communication age. The learning universe is expanding, and EMS education

must expand with it. We must have open minds toward new methods of delivery

and be willing to boldly try new things. Some of them won't work. Some

surely will.

To cite one example of strategies that have come and gone in the blink of an

eye, the distance learning concept of satellite TV classrooms. It seemed

like a great idea at the time. Cameras in the classroom and students in far

flung classes watching on TV screens and being televised at the same time.

An open video circuit between instructor and all classes and a telephone

speaker phone on each end. Great, except for the costs and logistics

involved. Much too combersome and equipment-intense. The Internet has

quickly made satellite video obselete because now every student can be in

front of a camera at her own computer and participate in chat rooms for a

fraction of the cost of the old technology. I remember just a few years ago

the lumbering satellite truck pulling up and establishing a link. That's

come and gone. What will be next? Easier and easier access. That's what.

Cheaper and cheaper access will be available no matter where you are.

Notions of boundaries are fading. I can teach my internet course to somebody

in Australia or Zimbabwe, so long as they can speak and understand English,

or soon I'll be able to have it instantly translated into Farsi for the

Iranians out there.

Do not FEAR education. Rather, see how you can gain more education. It may

be easier than you think.

Gene Gandy