Emergency medical personnel must master a wide range of skills and information to serve as firefighters, EMTs, and paramedics. This applies to all EMS and fire professionals in the United States.

But what about EMS and fire professionals who will ultimately find themselves working beyond U.S. borders? What about the professionals who, instead of fighting residential and commercial building fires, might have to care for victims on the front lines of a faraway war, or handle a situation involving an exploded IED?

John Bailey, assistant chief of Health & Safety at the Maxwell Air Force Base Fire Department, says: “The ultimate objective…is to have our firefighters highly trained, highly skilled in order to provide the best emergency medical care to our area of responsibility.”

But first, Bailey and other instructors across the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) must ready students to pass the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians (NREMT) exam before entering the field. Watch the video below and read on to learn more about how the U.S. Department of Defense uses the Fisdap Comprehensive Exam to train its fire and EMS students for the test and the field.

Training the Best: EMS Training Challenges of the U.S. Department of Defense

One challenge the U.S. Department of Defense faces that municipalities may not is simply one of geography. The DoD requires a standardized program that maps to the NREMT test, but that can also service students of different levels in sometimes vastly different locations, according to Jason Rose, EMS Program Manager and Station Chief of the Mt. Home (Idaho) Fire Department.

“One of the things we struggle with is you have a lot of states that do things differently,” he says. “I originally got trained in Alaska where we focused a lot on hypothermia. Then I moved to Texas, well, there’s not a lot of hypothermia there, it’s heat exhaustion. The challenge is trying to keep it consistent.”

The Fisdap Comprehensive Exam helps ensure instruction is consistent and student competency is measured the same across all DoD classes. As a proctored exam featuring test questions similar to NREMT exam questions — with the same number of questions and time constraints — it helps students experience what the NREMT exam is really like. This product helps instructors by exposing learning gaps, helping with remediation, and giving students confidence. The product can also help instructors predict outcomes and deliver great results. 

Bailey agrees with Rose on the unique challenges that face a DoD firefighter or EMT, and therefore the unique training challenges instructors face.

“With DoD, we have to do all types of emergencies,” he says. “We’ll do fire, we’ll do hazmat, we’ll do rescue, we’ll do extrication, and medical is all part of that too. We have to be highly trained and experienced.”

Preparing EMS Students for the NREMT Exam

Bailey has used the Fisdap Comprehensive Exam in myriad ways to help students prepare for their certification exam.

He explains: “The Fisdap Comprehensive Exam aligns with the NREMT curriculum, it provides our students a way to practice and review important topics before actually taking the certification exam.”

The platform includes features that allow instructors to track progress over time, which Bailey finds helpful so he can identify students who may need additional support.

Rose says he likes how the product enables students to work on their own at their own pace as well. He appreciates that the product comes with questions and sample exams preloaded.

“It’s really a time-saver,” he says. “It also helps us out with instruction.”

Different Abilities, Different Backgrounds, Same Results

Rose adds that the Fisdap Comprehensive Exam is great in terms of its standardization, but the program is flexible enough to allow instructors to step in and provide their expertise and assistance.

“If you have an instructor that teaches one way, a lot of people may understand it but some don’t,” he says. “Having the flashcards and interactive lessons, the students can go back and review those things and understand it a little bit different.

Ultimately, and most importantly, the product produces results. Bailey calls it a “game changer.”

“Since we started using Fisdap we have had a 100 percent success rate on the National Registry exam,” he says, adding that his EMR and EMT students alike have achieved this mark. “When they take the Fisdap exam and score well, they build confidence. They go into the National Registry test more confident than ever that they’ll pass the exam.”

While a 100% pass rate is the goal, it is not always a reality. Bailey said that with one student in particular, this product helped close the knowledge gap after several attempts and failures.

“Cool fact,” he begins. “We had a student take the class with us doing the self-paced, instructor-led course. She had taken the NREMT three other times and failed. After taking our Fisdap course, she passed the first time.” 

Watch the video:

Fisdap Comprehensive Exam: EMR

Fisdap Comprehensive Exams are designed to evaluate if students are ready to take certification exams and become practicing EMS professionals.

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