This post is to REINFORCE policies that are either already posted in Announcements Archives, your Clinical Manual, your Student Handbook, or all of the above. Mrs. Williams had been attempting to help students who had trouble giving 30 days notice by shortening that policy in her emails and handling student requests. But some students have been submitting clinical date requests with less than 30 days notice (sometimes MUCH less) and then, when the Clinical Coordinator cannot get the sites to confirm in the short amount of time given by the students, the students get upset with her or the Program. Please understand that since we do try to offer so many DIFFERENT sites and locations to try and help students have better opportunities and maybe even some closer to home, we don’t work with these sites on a daily basis. Most colleges have one or two hospital sites and maybe two or three EMS sites only and they work with them exclusively. So they get first choice on the schedule requests. Most hospitals also deal with many other disciplines pulling rotations competing for the same days, times and departments. (The downside for colleges and schools that only have a few sites they deal with exclusively is a much more rigid rotation availability schedule with semester deadlines. Either you fit it in or you don’t, and if you don’t, you enroll in another full semester again and again until it is done in most cases. We do have more availability because of our structure but it DOES require plenty of advance notice and even then, sometimes we can’t get confirmation from a specific site due to varying issues – site vacations, site student overload, site staff changes, no preceptors available on those dates, etc.)

So scheduling is an art and involves negotiation and plenty of advance notice. Mrs. Williams will and does work hard for EACH of you. But you have to work with her, communicate with her, and give her at least 30 days notice (and more for some sites). You should also let her know that you are willing to go to alternate sites as close as possible to your original request and be willing to go elsewhere if needed.)

Also, Mrs. Williams is like MOST Clinical Coordinators at almost every other EMS education program and has specific office hours that are NOT every day, all week long. She answers emails on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Tuesdays, she sends out schedule requests, follows up on schedule requests that have not been responded to by sites, enters shifts into Platinum, etc. She sends out her text number for after hours for students who are in rotations for EMERGENCIES ONLY! What constitutes an emergency for you to text her after hours or on weekends would be:

You are scheduled for a rotation but have been injured or are ill or have had a family emergency (death in the family, close family member in critical condition, etc.) and you MUST cancel the rotation because it is before the following Tuesday.
You are ON a rotation and something BAD happens, i.e. you are injured, you are emotionally distraught and need help, you are told to leave the site before the rotation is over.

Very little else constitutes an emergency that would necessitate you contacting Mrs. Williams Friday, Saturday, Sunday or after hours on Monday through Wednesday. Please do NOT contact her by text when she is not in her scheduled office hours unless it is a TRUE EMERGENCY.

Thank you!