Palomar College is resuming in person classes for EMT and Paramedic courses.

In March, Palomar’s Emergency Medical Education department stopped all in person meetings. As of May 4, they’ve resumed in person meetings due to being labeled by the state as an essential program.

They began delivering the lectures online once Palomar resumed courses on March 30. The lab portion however, resumed on campus on the fourth.

For EMT students, lab consists of practicing skills the students may perform in the field. In accordance with social distancing, instructors created several lab days to spread out the amount of students on campus at one time.

To pass the course, students would have to perform hours in the field on an ambulance and in the emergency department. Due to the coronavirus students are not being allowed this experience.

However state and county officials are allowing the department to substitute these clinical hours for 10 days of manikin simulation for EMT students.

“We will set up stations and lab rooms to mirror the hospital setting to allow the students to practice their skills just like they would in the hospital setting” said Career Technical Program Specialist Ally Do in an email.

The details of the final skills test are still being decided.

Paramedic students will have to pick back up where they left off with 175 hours of simulated hospital experience, working through the summer.

Featured image by Linus Smith/The Telescope