EMT Practice
Scope and fundamentals
EMTs provide basic life support, patient assessment, safe lifting and moving, oxygen and airway adjuncts, AED use, bleeding control, splinting, and assisted administration of the patient's own prescribed medications where permitted. The EMT examination rewards solid fundamentals: scene safety, mechanism of injury, primary survey, vital signs, and correct sequencing of basic interventions.
Concepts to master
Scene size-up and hazard control; infection prevention; adult, child and infant CPR with correct compression depth, rate and ratio; use of AED including paediatric considerations; airway positioning, oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal adjuncts; oxygen delivery devices and flow rates; haemorrhage control including direct pressure, packing and tourniquet use; immobilisation and transport positioning; and recognition of when to call for a higher level of practitioner.
Traps in questions
Sequencing questions are common: safety and calling for resources come before hands-on care. Tourniquet questions test that you do not loosen a correctly applied tourniquet and that you record the time. Airway adjunct questions test sizing and contraindications (a nasopharyngeal airway is avoided with suspected base-of-skull fracture). Vital sign interpretation questions often hinge on recognising abnormal trends rather than single values.
Rule of thumb
If the patient's condition exceeds your scope or the situation is unsafe, the answer is usually to request the appropriate resource and provide supportive care in the meantime. Never delay definitive help to complete a lower-priority task.
Worked example
A motorcyclist has catastrophic limb bleeding. Correct sequence: ensure scene safety, apply direct pressure then a tourniquet proximal to the wound if bleeding is uncontrolled, note the application time, and request advanced paramedic support while continuing assessment.