Oct. 9, 2013
Courtesy of the News-Review and The Three Lakes News
Students in Nicolet College firefighter classes learn techniques to extinguish a wide variety of types of fires, including car fires. A new curriculum has helped students in the col-
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lege’s firefighter and EMT programs achieve nearly a 100% pass rate on the skills portion
of state and national exams.
—Contributed Photo
Nicolet firefighter, EMT students
excel on state and national exams
___________
BY TERRY RUTLIN
COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST
NICOLET COLLEGE
___________
Students in Nicolet College’s firefighter and emergency medical technician (EMT) programs achieved nearly
a 100% pass rate on the skills portion
of the most recent state and national
certification exams.
It’s an accomplishment that program coordinators largely attribute to
a new curriculum.
“We’ve raised the bar on the quality
and amount of instruction and training students receive,” said Jason
Goeldner, director of Public Safety at
Nicolet College in Rhinelander.
“The end result is that students
completing our programs will have a
higher level of skill when they respond
to incidents,” said Goeldner. “This
translates directly into a higher level
of service to the general public.”
Of the 18 students taking the most recent Firefighter I state certification practical exam, 17 passed the rigorous test.
For EMTs, 25 of the 26 students
passed the most recent national certification skills exam.
“Of course, our goal is a 100% pass
rate and have all of our students receive certification the first time they
take an exam,” Goeldner said. “We’re
getting there and the new curriculum
will go a long way in helping us
achieve that goal.”
Students who don’t pass the exam on
their first attempt have the opportunity
to take the exam again, Goeldner noted.
The college also added an online
training component in the past year,
offering students the flexibility of completing their coursework at a time that
was best for them and cutting down on
travel to and from the Nicolet campus.
On the EMT side, the number of required training hours at Nicolet
jumped significantly in the past year,
increasing from 144 to 180 hours of
training, according to Dana Baumgartner, Nicolet College’s fire and emergency medical services specialist.
Along with giving students additional instruction on the technical skills of
being an EMT, the new curriculum also
provides more in-depth knowledge of
physiology, pathophysiology, illness and
disease processes, Baumgartner noted.
“We’ve placed a much greater emphasis on why specific treatments or
actions should be performed in given
situations rather than simply a seeand-treat method,” she said.
“This deeper level of training gives
EMTs a higher level of knowledge and
decision-making skills which, in the
end, results in a higher level of patient
care,” Baumgartner added.
Multiple components
The EMT training program at Nicolet has multiple components, some of
those being airway management, car-
diac arrest management, splinting, patient assessment, and spinal immobilization, among other topics.
The Firefighter I training program
at Nicolet has multiple components,
some of those being interior fire attack
up or down a flight of stairs; search and
rescue, fighting natural gas and electrical utility fires, hazardous material incidents, safe use of ladders, and protective gear, along with other topics.
For more information about firefighter and EMT training programs at Nicolet College, people can visit nicoletcollege.edu and go to the Continuing Education link at the top of the page and
then the Public Safety section. More information also is available by calling
the college’s Public Safety Department
at (715) 365-4600, 1-(800) 544-3039, ext.
4600, or TDD (715) 365-4448.
To register for classes, call the college’s Welcome Center at 365-4493, 1(800) 544-3039, ext. 4493, or TDD (715)
365-4448.