Blog 22

(1) Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your Block Presentation and/or your senior project? Why?

I am most proud of all of the knowledge and experience I have gained throughout these nine months. The skills I have learned will be useful to me in a wide variety of situations.

(2) Questions to Consider

a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your Block Presentation (self-assessment)?
P

b.     What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project (self-assessment)?

P

(3) What worked for you in your senior project?

The best thing that worked for me in this project was the fact that I enjoyed my topic. If I wasn't passionate about first aid, then I most likely would not have been able to retain so much information about my topic.

(4) (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would have you done differently to improve your senior project if you could go back in time?

I would spend more time practicing my final presentation. As I was presenting, I was involuntarily speaking very quickly, which I believe could have been avoided with further rehearsing of my information.

(5) Finding Value

How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?   Be specific and use examples.

Well I have not had any future endeavors that have required the knowledge I have gained from my senior project yet, though I would assume that my first aid and leadership skills could come in handy in a wide variety of situations. There may come a time when someone I care about becomes injured and I now have the ability to help them. That is the ony thing I care about.

Blog 21

Literal

The link to my mentorship log is on the right.

Mentor contact information:

Robert Ethridge (909) 297-9272

My mentorship occurs at several different places, including different marathon locations and first aid classes at different companies, so I am not too sure how to list them.

Interpretive 

The most important thing I gained from this experience would be the vast amount of usable first aid knowledge I had learned. I can use the skills I have learned in the past nine months anywhere at any time for the rest of my life.

Applied

My nine months of mentorship has helped me answer my EQ, which is How can an EMT team best execute first aid during an endurance challenge?, by allowing me to gain hands-on experience in the pursuit to answer this question. Thanks to my mentor, I have been able to treat patients in the field and apply the skills I have learned from my classes and textbooks, which helped me understand and answer my EQ more effectively.

Blog 20

(1) What is your essential question and answers?  What is your best answer and why?

EQ: How can an EMT team best execute first aid during an endurance challenge? 

Answer 1: An EMT team can best execute first aid during an endurance challenge by creating a priority list of objectives.

Answer 2: An EMT team can best execute first aid during an endurance challenge by being prepared to treat injuries specific to the endurance challenge.

Answer 3: An EMT team can best execute first aid during an endurance challenge by identifying symptoms that the runners are trying to hide or are unaware of prior to the event.

My best answer is my first one, An EMT team can best execute first aid during an endurance challenge by creating a priority list of objectives, due to the ability to use this skill in any situation. Answer two only explains how to treat injuries and answer three explains how to identify, but answer one allows medical personnel to create a plan of action before entering the scene of the emergency. I used two textbook sources to help me back up this answer. The first is in a book titled First Responder, 8th Edition, by Chris and David Bergeron. There is a section called "Caring for the Medical Emergency" that gives a descriptive layout of a general priority list that can be applied to most situations. The second source is in EMR Complete by Daniel Limmer, which has a chapter titled "Incident Management" that describes what to do in situations that have more than one patient.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

I had originally created this answer in my junior year of high school when we had our first day of senior presentations. I have wanted to do first aid as my senior topic since freshman year, but I had no idea we needed to create an EQ and a best answer, so after the first senior presentation I saw, I decided to get ahead of the game and create my answer. This does not mean I had any real justification for this to be my best answer though. When we began to research our topics on our own, my mentor had given me several textbooks to use. Most of them had layouts of general lists of objectives to accomplish in just about any medical emergency. I then asked my mentor to teach me his own way of handling a medical emergency. I had the opportunity to practice this newly acquired skill on October 19th, 2013, when I worked at the medical booth at an Ultramarathon. At one point during the day, we had several patients come to the booth at once and my mentor asked me to decide who should be treated first and how to treat them, so I went down my list of priorities. First was to check to see if any of the patients were in critical condition, in this case none of them were. Next I deduced that none of the patients' injuries/ailments needed to be treated right away (from a medical standpoint), so I decided that the participants in the marathon should be treated first, otherwise some of them would either leave or become a detriment in the care of the other patients by being an annoyance. This is the real world application of my best answer. 

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

My first problem occured when the teachers required me to change my EQ from how a bystander should handle a situation to how an EMT team should execute first aid during an endurance challenge. This wasn't a major problem because all I needed to do was tweek my way of thinking about the project. Two real problems with my senior project occured later on; I did not have enough opportunities to volunteer and I didn't have enough research. I began helping my mentor teach some of his first aid classes and assisted him in menial work (grading papers and preparing supplies), which solved my first problem. In order to solve the research issue, I had to broaden my scope of sources to online articles, not just textbooks.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

My two most significant sources would be my mentor, Robert Ethridge, whom is an EMT and medical unit leader for the US Forest Service, and one of the textbooks he has given me, titled EMR Complete by Daniel Limmer. My mentor has been a great help to me throughout this project by consistently giving me opportunities to apply the skills I have learned from him  and has given me many good sources for research purposes. EMR Complete outlines how an EMT should execute first aid and tips on the best ways to handle medical emergencies.

Independent Component 2

LITERAL
(a) Statement saying: “I, student name, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.”

I, Jeremy Ethridge, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.

(b) Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the independent component

My mentor, Robert Ethridge, helped me complete the independent component by allowing me to work with him as an EMT assistant.

(c) Provide a digital spreadsheet (aka log of the 30 hours).   Post it next to your mentorship log.

Independent Component 2

(d) Explanation of what you completed.

For my first two hours, I helped my mentor create and edit quizzes that would be given to his EMT students. For the other twenty-eight hours, I had assisted my mentor and his team of EMT's at a Run 4 Kids marathon. Before the event, my job was to make sure that the medical bags were fully stocked up and ready for the day ahead. At the marathon, I was responsible for assisting the EMT Kyle, who works with my mentor in teaching First Aid, in care of patients with minor injuries (ex: cuts, blisters, etc.). I was also responsible for keeping the station organized and comfortable for the patients, checking in on the runners while they were running, and treating the child runners. After the event, I was told to take stock of what was missing/used from the medical bags and perform check ups on the runners.

INTERPRETIVE 
Defend your work and explain how the significant parts of your component and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work. Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.  

These four pictures help to show all aspects of what I do as an EMT assistant at the Run 4 Kids marathons. Not only do I assist in the treatment of patients suffering minor injuries, but I also help give the EMT's everything and provide for the well-being of the patients (as is shown in the fourth picture when my brother and I moved our EZ-Up to give the patient some shade). 

APPLIED
How did the component help you answer your EQ? Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped. 

This component helped me solidify my third answer because of the different injuries that occured at the event. Several of the participants were trying to hide their injuries in order to continue the run, so my mentor enlisted me to look for signs of ailment amongst the runners. This is what helped me create my third answer.

March Blog Post

In this month, I had two opportunities to gain community service hours. I worked at an Ultramarathon and assisted my mentor in teaching one of his first aid classes. At the marathon, I helped get all of the gear and medical equipment prepared before the event, gave the participants check-ups before and during the marathon, treated the child runners, and helped take inventory after the event. At the class, I assisted by preparing the room and checking to make sure all of the students are performing the skills tests properly.

Answer #3

EQ

How can an EMT team best execute first aid during an endurance challenge?

Answer #3 (Write in a complete sentence like a thesis statement)*

An EMT team can best execute first aid during an endurance challenge by identifying symptoms that the runners are trying to hide or are unaware of.

3 details to support the answer (a detail is a fact and an example)

Endurance runners tend to have a serious passion for running, causeing them to want to hide symptoms that may force them to quit the challenge. At one of the ultramarathons I worked at, a runner was showing signs of liver failure, but tried to hide the symptoms in order to continue running.

There are some injuries/ailments that the runners may be unaware of, such as dehydration or over hydration.

Most of the endurance runners have their own set way of keeping themselves healthy during the challenges, which makes it harder for the runners to know if they are doing something wrong, such as improper food and water intake.

The research source (s) to support your details and answer

"Dehydration" from the NY Times, "Health" from Faqs.org, and "Common Running Injuries" by WebMD.

Concluding Sentence

An EMT team can best execute first aid during an endurance challenge by identifying symptoms that the runners are trying to hide or are unaware of.

Blog 17

1. How can an EMT team best execute first aid during an endurance challenge?

2. What is an endurance challenge defined as?

3. What types of medical personnel are required to be on staff during an endurance challenge?

4. What age group usually participates in an endurance challenge?

5. What are some common injuries to the participants?

6. What are the standard procedures for evacuating a participant suffering a major injury?

7. Is an endurance runner taken out of the race for suffering a minor injury?

8. Is there a specific location for the EMT's to be stationed?

9. What are the roles that an EMT working at an endurance challenged are required to accomplish?

10. How are the EMT's expected to act and look?

11. What are some signs that a runner might need help?

12. Does having children running with the adults change how patients are treated?

13. In the event of multiple injuries occurring at once, such as the Boston Marathon bombing, what steps need to be taken?

14. Are there injuries that EMT personnel are not allowed to treat at a marathon?

15. Do EMT’s work with other medical personnel at marathons?

16. How do you hand off patients to paramedics?

17. What is the best way to treat children suffering minor injuries?

18. Do bystanders play a detrimental role in the care of a patient?

19. Are the marathon coordinators allowed to set rules for medical care of the runners?

20. To what extent is an EMT assistant allowed to assist in medical care?