International internship experience for emergency medical service paramedic students.

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this study is to delineate the training activities in the internship program, describe students' clinical and emergency medical service field hours and skills performance, and compare between internship students groups in their skills performance.

METHODS

This is a retrospective, descriptive, and analytical study based on an interpretive observational documentary review of internship reports received on internship students.

RESULTS

Three groups of internship students participated in various training activities in 3 years. Students in Group A (2015) completed 4610 h and contact 1600 patients. They completed the following clinical skills: 712 medication administrations, 652 intravenous (IV) access, 174 team leads (TLs), 4 live patient endotracheal intubations, and 13 ventilations. Students in Group B (2016) completed 2424 h and contact 797 patients. They completed several clinical skills including 256 medication administrations, 249 IV access, 16 TLs, 1 live patient endotracheal intubation, and 8 ventilations. Students in Group C (2017) completed 5700 h and contact 1200 patients. They completed several skills including 673 medication administrations, 650 IV access, 198 TLs, 11 live patient endotracheal intubations, and 27 ventilations. The study revealed significant differences and superiority in skills performance in Groups A (2015) and C (2017) over Group B (2016).

CONCLUSION

Internship students have exposure opportunities to patients and have more opportunities to perform medication administration, IV activities, and serve as TLs. As expected, internship students have few opportunities to perform live tube insertions and ventilation. There are statistical significant differences in skills performance within the group of students in each year and among the three groups of internship students.