Welcome to Critical Care Paramedic Course

Instructor Beth Burkhart

Beth Burkhart is a Critical Care Flight Paramedic with the University of Missouri Helicopter Service and a lead instructor with University of Missouri Extension - EMS Education.  Beth's contact information is as follows:

burkhartb@health.missouri.edu or 660-221-1795

Your email address is the default for communication, so check it regularly.

  Course Description

This course will allow the student to be eligible to take the specialty certification exam for Critical Care Paramedic (CCP-C) and Certified Flight Paramedic (FP-C).

The CCP course is designed to prepare paramedics to provide advanced critical care during ground and air transport of critically ill or injured patients. Knowledge gained during this course will provide instruction and understanding of care beyond the standard paramedic curriculum.

The CCP course will meet for ten Monday's from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. starting February 26, 2024, and completing April 29, 2024. Successful completion of this course will result in a certificate of completion, 90 hours of advanced continuing education, and preparation for the Certified Critical Care Paramedic (CCP-C®) and Certified Flight Paramedic (FP-C®) exams administered by the International Board of Specialty Certifications (formerly the Board for Critical Care Transport Paramedic Certification (BCCTPC®).

This course will provide advanced learning continuing education units designed to enhance your critical care thinking and advanced skills.  Typical classroom presentation includes classroom lectures and hands-on technical skill training combined with low and high-level simulation scenarios.  Not all topics of the course will be discussed in the classroom lecture, therefore the student will need to complete online lectures and assignments not discussed in the classroom.   

 To complete this blended course and achieve the completion certification, all online and in-classroom work must be completed.  Each week, students will have required reading, assignments, quizzes, online lectures, and in-classroom required participation.   Students must achieve a passing score of 70% on all quizzes to complete this course and attend at a minimum of 9 of the 10 classroom days.

Attendance is mandatory to complete this course.  Students must make every effort to attend all in-seat class opportunities.  Therefore a student must attend a minimum of 9 of the 10 required in-seat classroom opportunities to be awarded a course completion.   In-seat classroom days begin at 830 a.m. each day.  Daily digital attendance will be required and maintained.  If a student is tardy for more than 5 minutes, the student will be considered absent for that classroom session.

 Course Navigation

New to Canvas?  Select the "Getting Started with Canvas" link, located in the left side navigation bar.  There you can view short tutorial videos on how to access your course, how to navigate through Canvas, how to set up a profile and the Canvas Dashboard.  There are additional resources to help when you need more information specific to Canvas.

The course is set up in Modules. Each module has an activity to be completed and they have requirements that need to be met before you are able to proceed. To access the Syllabus, simply select it from the left-side navigation bar.

We recommend you move to proceed through the course sequentially by selecting the BACK or NEXT buttons at the bottom of each page.

 Objectives

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Recognize different flight physiologies
• Understand barophysiology and critical patient transfer considerations
• Recognize and perform critical care patient packaging
• Recognize critical airway and ventilation management issues including: surgical airways, ventilators, CPAP, and BiPAP
• Understand thoracotomy
• Perform and maintain chest tubes in critical care
• Maintain central venous lines
• Expand pharmacologic knowledge and it's role in critical care
• Interpret laboratory data
• Recognize advanced 12 Lead ECG with correct interpretation and treatment
• Understand and perform hemodynamic monitoring in the critical care patient 

  Course Organization

During this course multiple instructional materials, resources, technologies, and learning activities are used and will help you achieve the critical learning objectives or prepare you to demonstrate course competencies.

Required Book:  Critical Care Transport, 2nd edition by AAOS

This course uses Modules to organize course learning resources.   You must complete all sections of each module to advance to the next module.

Each module may include:

• Videos covering the topic
• Readings to enhance student understanding
• Discussions to connect to students
• Quizzes to check understanding
• Assignments to show student mastery of the material
• instructor and course evaluations

 Assignments

All reading, lectures, homework, quizzes and tests are to be completed prior to the next in-seat classroom unless otherwise directed.

Your instructor will take every effort to provide timely feedback on assignments.  After assignment submissions, your instructor welcomes the opportunity to discuss questions or concerns in person at the beginning of the next class period.  If you need additional assignment feedback, please contact Beth Burkhart for further clarification. 

Late assignments will automatically be deducted 10%.

 Assessment and Grading

All learning will be assessed by Primary Instructor Beth Burkhart, Adjunct Instructor Adam Daubach, or MU EMS Education Program Director Jess Kampeter.

Assessments may include pre- and post-quizzes, formative and summative assessments, video quizzes, discussion posts, and evaluations. 

Course letter grades will not be provided.  You must maintain a cumulative score of 70% and maintain attendance of greater than 90%  to be awarded the completion certificate. 

  Course Completion

 To complete this blended course and achieve the completion certification, all online and in-classroom work must be completed.  Each week, you will have required reading, assignments, quizzes, online lectures, and in-classroom required participation.   You must achieve a passing score of 70% to complete this course.

Attendance is mandatory to complete this course.  Students must make every effort to attend all in-seat class opportunities.  Therefore a student must attend a minimum of 9 of the 10 required in-seat classroom opportunities to be awarded a course completion.   In-seat, classroom days begin at 0830 each day.  Daily digital attendance will be required and maintained.  If a student is tardy for more than 5 minutes, the student will be considered absent for that classroom session.

  Acknowledgements

Contributing authors

Beth Burkhart
Critical Care Course Instructor and Coordinator and Lead Paramedic Instructor

Project Coordinator

Beth Burkhart
Curriculum Consultant

Curriculum Review

Review by peers is a process through which researched-based publications are scrutinized by other experts in the same field.  This procedure encourages the authors to meet the accepted high standards of the discipline, prevents inadvertent errors, and results in high-quality publications.  Authors and editors gratefully acknowledge the following peer reviewers for their expert knowledge and contributions to the Critical Care Paramedic Course:

Jessica Kampeter, MU EMS Education Program Director 

Dr. Karl Huesgen, MU EMS Education Medical Director, Associate Professor, University of Missouri
Dr. Joshua Stilley, MU EMS Medical Director, Associate Professor, University of Missouri

  Accommodations

If you anticipate barriers related to the format or requirements of this course, or if disability-related accommodations are necessary (for example, extended time on exams, or materials in an alternate format), please notify your instructor or contact Canvas Support.