For more information, contact Jennifer Ladd, 620-899-7932.

August 13, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Story by: Linda Jerke

Field Ops Day Brings Out Cooperative Efforts
Barton Community College's Emergency Medical Services Education partnership established four years ago with Pratt Community College has become a lesson in cooperation that can be witnessed especially on Barton's EMS Field Operations Days.

In this partnership, PCC allows Barton to provide EMS Education to students in its service area and utilize the Pratt campus for classes and training. When Barton has a Field Operations Day to test its EMS students, both colleges benefit as the two often assist each other. That was the case in a recent field ops event when the PCC nursing students became the ER staff working with the student EMS personnel, thus giving the Pratt students a good field test as well.

On those Field Operations Days, which happen twice a year, EMS students are called out on simulated medical emergencies that are the next best thing to the real life traumas they will face in the real world of EMS. The exercise tests their EMS skills and knowledge, explained Jennifer Ladd, Barton's EMS Education Pratt Site Coordinator.

Ladd plans the next Field Ops event for Aug. 22 and will utilize PCC's campus as the location for the mock disaster. Volunteers from the Pratt, Sylvia and Turon communities donate their time as patients or victims, who are painted with artificial blood and bruises and do their best to act out the manifestations of many other injuries while the EMS students apply their newly learned skills in emergency medical procedures.

"(PCC) allows us to use its dorms, rodeo grounds, baseball fields and many other locations on its campus," Ladd said. "Last May, we set up a tent site behind some trees on campus as the scene of a mass shooting. It was very realistic."

In fact, the field ops event is usually so realistic that the students walk away from it still shaking, Ladd said.

Barton's EMS Program was one of the first in the state to have a mobile simulation lab. The fully equipped ambulance also is equipped with a camera, microphone and computers so the students can be monitored during the event.

Inside the emergency vehicle as it rushes the patient to the hospital, student EMS providers talk to the patients to assess and treat their injuries. The vehicle simulates the real-life situation, sometimes going down a bumpy road, not just a smooth highway, to give the students that experience, Ladd said.

Life Team or Eagle Med emergency flight services often come in to give the students a chance to see what it's like to work with them, she added.

The Aug. 22 event will be held from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and will involve four EMS students in the summer class. Barton's EMS Education Program welcomes the public to participate in Field Operations Day as patients or bystanders, or just to come out and watch as the event unfolds. Anyone interested in participating may contact Ladd, 620-899-7932, or Barton's EMS Education Office, 620-792-9341 or 800-732-6842.

"We can always use more patients and helpers," Ladd said.
Barton's EMS Program is one of only eight accredited paramedic programs in Kansas and it has the largest EMS education service area of any community college in the state, making education convenient and accessible. The program has a student success rate well above the national average, Ladd said.

Barton's EMS Education Program offers coursework at all levels of pre-hospital emergency care with courses on the Barton County campus, on the Pratt Community College campus and at Barton's Hazardous Materials and Emergency Services Training Institute in Grandview Plaza, Kan. Barton's program also has online opportunities, including its EMS Administration degree curriculum.
Employment of Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics is expected to grow faster than the national average through 2014.

Upon completion of Barton's program and receipt of certification, Paramedic students can pursue employment as entry level Paramedics with EMS or fire agencies as well as with private industry, college and professional sports teams and hospitals.

Barton Community College Emergency Medical Services students place a patient in the emergency vehicle during a recent Field Operations Day on the Pratt Community College campus. Barton's EMS Program partners with PCC to offer EMS education on the Pratt campus.