dr-exmedic.com

Most of my attitudes towards EMS were formed by my personal experiences with EMS services and systems which are pretty much formed in ways which fight against the provision of high-quality care.  Therefore, I nearly choked when I stumbled across an article entitled, “EMS Sex Ed Program Reduces Rural Pregnancy Rate,” primarily because I couldn’t trust probably half of the people I’ve worked with to provide such a program without making a some of the students uncomfortable (i.e. I couldn’t trust some of them not to use the word faggot, and I couldn’t trust others not to be trying to screw the high school girls), to say nothing of the actual knowledge of sex and reproduction among those colleagues (which is not necessarily their fault–my medical assistant students had a longer sex & reproduction section than the EMT-P curriculum).

Granted, the article isn’t a research article, but some small problems jump out at me.  Right in the first two paragraphs, the author notes that the school district involved had 12 pregnancies in the year before the EMS sex-ed lectures.  Then, “[a]fter only two sex ed classes taught by paramedics, the number of teen pregnancies fell to four, and in 2003, fell again to only one.”

This would be remarkable.  However, since there are no historical data in the article, there’s no way of knowing whether the 12 pregnancies in 2001 was a typical number or a mere statistical aberration.  After all,  terrorist deaths in the US in 2002 and 2003 dropped compared to 2001–does this statistic show the effectiveness of our counterintelligence agencies, or is it just a return to baseline after an unusual year?  (Hint:  look up the data for the preceding few years.)

The other question is one of curriculum development, which the article glosses over–it simply describes the program as “fact-based program that presents statistics and information.”  While there may have been very good research and input into this program (which the medics seem to have cooked up themselves–after all, the health department educator is described as being “unable to offer a program”), it’s not exactly a topic covered in paramedic school.

Most disturbingly, this article was published by a journal that calls itself Best Practices in Emergency Services.  How can this be described as a “best practice” when the article presents the level of proof that I would expect out of a USA Today article?

While I certainly welcome the day when paramedic-level providers will be commonplace outside the ambulance, I don’t know that this is a place I expect them to end up.  Maybe that’s just because I see the profession as having started out dealing with emergencies, and expect it to continue dealing with emergencies and urgencies.

Filed under: EMS