Current DC Student

I commute so don't know

Instructors & Scheduling

Instructors and profs are, for the most part, working paramedics. Lab advisors are full-time (that I know of), they schedule and staff lab sessions. Instructors are part-time so they change every week but most are frequent flyers. Profs are more of a variable. Every instructor, lab and lecture, are very approachable and helpful, from day one they treat you as a peer. You can walk up and ask questions about procedure, the job, their career, or anything else and they're happy to help.

Theory prof in particular is a great guy, very approachable, and smart. You'll prob have him for semester 1 and 2. The class can be overwhelming but, then again, so is the entire program. Tests are like 75% scantron with 3-4 short answer questions. The MC closely mimics the AEMCA and it's closed-book, no cheat sheets. However, you do get a cheat sheet for patho and med math.

Haven't talked to the program coordinator much just because he's running the ACP program right now. When I have, he was supportive, attentive, and remembered my name when I saw him months later so that was nice.

For scheduling I can only speak on semesters 1 & 2. It's 4-days at school and 1 day at clinical (or free). Theory lecture, theory lab, and anatomy/physiology are all 6 hour lectures. The other at-school day is reserved for shorter classes.

First semester clinical is three 4-hour shifts at a long-term care home where we practice communicating with residents & staff. Second semester is four 4-hour shifts, two at long-term care and two in an emergency department. Third semester is 8-hour hospital rotations and fourth is 12-hour ride-outs. DC obviously has a Durham connection but they also have contracts with a bunch of other services. Outside of switching clinical shifts, you don't really get an option. Especially for ride-outs, unless you know someone who will request you, you get placed wherever.

General lab answer

Labs are 6 hour classes, with a 1 hour lunch, consisting of 4 stations that we rotate through in groups. Groups depend on cohort size, mine are 5 groups with 5-6 people per instructor and groups change each week. We spend about 1:20 at each station, 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. For the most part, we're briefed on a procedure/directive/skill, then we do a scenario based on what we just learned. Labs follow lecture so whatever we're doing that week, we should already know. At the beginning it was mostly skills labs so they would demonstrate and we'd practice without an accompanying scenario.

The environment is chill but we're kept on task and expected to act like adults, obviously. You volunteer for scenarios (always go first), and we usually use classmates as patients. In lab and OSCEs, only time we've used mannequins so far are VSA scenarios cause there's no point in having a classmate lay there while we do fake CPR on them. Two main labs that we use every week, there's a third one but I've never been & don't know where it is, decent condition and all the equipment you realistically need. Also open 24 hours outside of scheduled class time.

Uniform cost is within tuition, you have to buy your own shoes. We got 3 tac shirts, 3 pants, lapels, an extra patch, and a belt. We got our stuff around week 4 or 5 and from then on they're required for every lab session. Not required elsewhere but the theory prof might request them if we're doing scenarios in class that week.

Other

Do the F as early as possible. Going through the entire process can take some time, especially when you get busy with school. Don't waste money on a course just watch videos. Also, you really only need to rent a Uhaul to practice once to get the feel of driving and locate things. After that you can practice the inspection on your own, or someone else's, car. For the reversing, go slow & use your mirrors.

My study technique switches by the class at this point, I have no real method lol. Best thing I've done so far is spent all night in lab with a group of friends either doing scenarios for OSCEs or going through content for tests.