My name is Jerry Dinsmore and I am the CEO here at PERCOM. We generally do not post on forums or messages boards, but this topics begs for a statement from us. We feel that dialouge of this nature is good, but we would like to clear up some misconceptions and misinformation about our program.
The reason that any student chooses any program varies greatly. Most students that choose PERCOM choose us because of the flexibility of the program compared to college based courses. Some students are unable to attend traditional courses due to their work schedule or other issues that will not allow them to enroll in a rigidly scheduled course. You also should take into account students in the rural/frontier areas of TX whose nearest "Community College" offering EMS education is literally 200 miles away. These students would be unable to receive EMS education without a hybrid program such as ours. We also have many students who are soldiers that deployed overseas. Our program allows these students to complete the didactic portion of the program while in theater and then attend skills training and clinical rotations when they return to the US.
The course is not easy by any means. We have had physicians, PA's, RN's and former Paramedics take our courses. They have all commented that the educational process was one of the most challenging they had ever been through. We feel that in order for the learning process to occur in an online environment, the program must be extensive and thorough. We have weekly online student/teacher chat sessions to allow students to interact in real time with their instructors during the didactic portion of the course. The students are also encouraged to interact with the instructors via email with any question/issues they may have. Online education is not for every student. It takes a self motivated person to proceed through the material and learn in the virtual environment. However for those student who are motivated, it allows them to attend a program with more flexibility than traditional classes.
Cheap is a relative term. Our pricing is structured to pay the expenses involved in educating the student with a minimal profit margin for the company. I would not call $4000+ cheap, however I would describe it as reasonable.
Our website was designed to give an "Overview" of the program, not every detail of how we educate the student. This was done for 2 reasons.
1: We wanted to give enough information to the prospective student to peak their interest. We then want that prospective student to contact us so that we can discuss their unique situation (all students are different and unique). This allows us to help the student determine in our program is right for them. As I said earlier, online education is not for everyone and we want to ensure that student who enroll in PERCOM's programs understand fully how the program works and makes an informed decision before enrolling.
2: We did not want to let competing companies know how we do what we do. Business by nature is competitive and we are successful. We do not want the competition to know the in's and out's of our educational process and have them mimic it. We have had to deal with copyright infringement issues already and would rather not have to deal with issues of that nature again. Litigation, while successful on our part, takes away time from our main goal which is education.
Dancing Monkeys and NREMT. Interesting. I have sooooo much I could say. I guess my question to you would be: What benchmark would you like us to use? How can we compare our graduates to graduates of other programs? If you can suggest a truly level benchmark that I can use to compare our graduates to I would be more than happy to run the numbers and see where we compare.
We do have prerequisites listed on the website. We do not include A&P as one of them because we teach each student A&P before they are allowed to begin the Paramedic Curriculum. If a student can show proof of completing A&P at a college level then we waive that requirement.
Clinicals are required in the course. We currently have 150+ clinical sites across the state of Texas. WE supervise the students in the clinical environment. We have minimum patient contacts and skills that must be preformed in the clinical environment. Hospital rotations include ER,OR,L&D,ICU,NICU and Cath Lab. EMS rotations include minimum calls that the student must be in the "Lead" role. All of these minimums must be met prior to graduation.
This is the quote that truly drove me to respond to this thread. DwayneEMTP can you please show me where our site makes any of these claims. Post the url's or screenshots of our site claiming "less expensive" "study at home" "Fewer practice ?and clinical hours". I don't feel we have done any of this and I feel your depiction here is quite unfair.
We take EMS education very seriously and our educators are top notch. Each of our lead instructors has been a Department Chair at a College EMS education program. We started this company to bring quality EMS education to student sans the rigidity of the college environment. After years of working in the College environment we saw so many students who were unable to meet their educational goals due to the intransigence of the College system. We felt that we would be able to offer quality EMS education in a more flexible way to allow more student to achieve these goals. We actually work cooperatively with college programs (Including Texas A&M) to add even more flexibility to the students choices. Our program goes through continuous review to ensure that our goals as educators are being met.
I welcome any comments, questions and constructive criticism you or anyone else may have.
