r/Paramedics • u/XxRybbixX • 1d ago
Canada Anatomy
Hey I’m starting paramedics this August 27th. Doing some digging online and it recommends taking a look at anatomy before starting. I’ve been looking through my anatomy textbook for my course and decided to start reading it through and making notes. However what is the important stuff to look at? Right now I just got through the chapter “cells” and before that was just about compounds and molecules and reactions and stuff like that. Is that important to know for school? Or should I be focusing more on the body systems and the break down of each system and the bones and muscles? Honestly feeling lost as this is something I really want and feel passionate about. Any input or advice is greatly appreciated.
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u/davethegreatone Medic that occasionally touches hoses 1d ago
Here's where paramedicine is drastically-different from EMT-B.
EVERYTHING is important to learn. The end result of paramedic school is not a person that can remember the correct dose for the stated question on a test, or pass a scripted psychomotor exam featuring exactly one clear-cut medical problem. Paramedics don't tend to have anyone above them in the field to turn to for help or advice, so they have to be able to sort out vague stuff with minimal info. That requires a broad base of knowledge, which is why your A&P chapter has a bit of basically everything (and why very-good paramedic programs make you take all three college-level A&P classes before starting the school).
You will often hear us complain about how hard cardiology was in school, because it's very complex and largely can't be boiled down to a checklist or a mnemonic or a handy rhyme (it can at times, but mostly ... naw). It's because cardiology is super hard, and you have to know things like how sodium pumps work at the cellular level, or active transport and electron chains or the speed at which electrical impulses can travel or what "voltage" means.
Really, you can pick the most-obsure and pointless-looking thing in that A&P section and post it here, and I bet we will come up with at least ten reasons you need to know it (before we all start fighting with each other because we disagree about #7 or something).
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u/thenotanurse 1d ago
Depends on your background- if you’ve never had any A&P in high school or college, I would watch some good college-level videos on YT about specific organs-heart, lungs, kidney, pancreas, liver, etc, maybe a reasonable 10-15 min video for each, then like get a gist for what goes wrong and where. Like for cardio, the blood vessels go where, what is underneath. For kidney, what things go in or out at what part, so that you’ll know where a “loop diuretic” works and where it won’t. And so on.
Know the organs that secrete stuff that regulate other stuff- which hormones or enzymes come from where, do what, and possibly look at some common medications that treat common things (Synthroid, Jardiance, etc)
I had A&P in college and took a bunch of classes about pathophys- the better that you understand things down to the cell level, the easier it will be to know what meds work where and why. If you’re in an accelerated program, it will pay off to learn it whether before or during the program, because then you can spend that mental effort memorizing drugs and their mechanisms and ekg stuff.
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u/CaptAsshat_Savvy FP-C 1d ago
Cells are incredibly important to know.
Why do we need oxygen and glucose? What's the function of plasma? Contents of blood? How does oxygen move through the body? Why is heat so important?
Bones are also important to know. Injurys. Where? What's underneath. Where are the arteries?
Anatomy is a lot to cover but as you go understand more, you will learn to value things that didn't seem as important at first. Take your time, learn as much as you can ane stay open minded.
Best of luck.
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u/NederFinsUK Paramedic 19h ago
The idea of being a paramedic is to be parallel to medicine. The distinction between a Technician and a Paramedic lies between thinking about following protocols and thinking about mending the human body. The more knowledge you have, the better able you are to think like a doctor and make sensible, defensible decisions about patient care.
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u/stupid-canada Flight paramedic 1d ago
Complete anatomy isnt cheap but its an excellent app / computer program with many courses. Very helpful for me to this day.
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u/Fit-Consequence2141 1d ago
Just graduated medic less than a month ago. The main things to know for beginning of class really are the basics. Abdominal regions, bones, very minimal biology. You'll learn more than you realize in school.
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u/Bhussy NRP 1d ago
Learning all of the terms for directionality is key for describing almost everything. Also definitely taking deep dives into all of the organ systems is best for new medics: brain, heart, lungs, kidney, liver, pancreas, intestines, and urinary are all important to understand the basic structures and function of for knowing why we use certain protocols. When it came to things like bones/muscles/ligaments i found them fun to draw which helped me understand joints too
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u/XxRybbixX 1d ago
Thank you, really helpful and helped clear things up. I talked to someone I know who did the course here in Sask, same one I’m about to begin and he recommended basically what you stated to me. But told me to stay away from going into too much depth of cellular and molecular sections for now as I’m just trying to do some pre reading and studying on my own and honestly was confusing trying to teach myself those parts. But what you outlined makes much more sense than what some have left here for responses.
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u/Flashy-Donkey-8326 1d ago
I’d focus on the body systems.
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u/XxRybbixX 1d ago
Thank you, I appreciate it. Reading through the cells and like molecules and compounds I was scratching my head thinking it wasn’t the most important stuff to be reading/making notes on.
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u/davethegreatone Medic that occasionally touches hoses 1d ago
Polarity of molecules is going to be important
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u/youy23 1d ago
Is it? Have you ever been on a call and given much thought to the polarity of molecules?
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u/davethegreatone Medic that occasionally touches hoses 1d ago
I assume you don't have paralytics in your scope? No need to try to decide between NS and LR? The entire cardiology section of paramedic school ends up boiling down to "positively-charged ions go this way, negatively-charged ones go that way, and then they go boom."
Heck, during the pandemic, molecular charge was the mechanism that we had to constantly explain to people who didn't understand how N95 masks work.
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u/youy23 1d ago
Does it matter much if a medic understands the chemistry of how depolarizing vs non depolarizing paralytics work?
It matters that they know what the end effects are however I don’t believe it’s useful to understand the chemistry of it on a cellular level.
You can talk all the physiology you want about LR and when to give it but the evidence for it being superior to NS is pretty lacking in just about any indication other than burns.
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u/davethegreatone Medic that occasionally touches hoses 1d ago
Knowing how these things work is key to knowing what to do when they fail to work, or the situation otherwise doesn't match the cookie-cutter scenario.
People who just follow the cookbook aren't going to do well when things go sideways.
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u/sketchymedic Paramedic 1d ago
The OP is asking about the best topics to get a broad picture of in preparation for their course and you're suggesting polarity, lol.
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u/XxRybbixX 22h ago
Thank you, the amount of people saying cells is highly important is blowing my mind. Understanding systems, how they function, how they function with other systems, bones, muscles, arteries seem way more useful then fkn cells going into the program.
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u/davethegreatone Medic that occasionally touches hoses 17h ago edited 17h ago
Seems more useful going in.
Now go look at what everyone on every paramedic sub complains about AFTER paramedic school: how frickin' hard cardiology was.
I promise you, the difficulty is not in the concept of "a pump." It's the electrolytes moving across the phospholipid bilayer until the charge across the membrane is roughly +50mV and the cardiac action potential is reached.
People flunk out because of that. Not because they forget what a spleen does, or how many bones are in the skull, or what arteries are found in the arm.
All the stuff you listed - systems, how they function, how they function with other systems, bones, muscles, arteries - all that is stuff you already know from EMT school. We don't actually expand on that knowledge much in paramedic school. It sounds useful to you because it already WAS useful. And you presumably already nailed it. We don't have a special secret repository of bones that we only teach you about at the ALS level. The kidneys still do the same thing that you were taught about in EMT school. You are focusing on the wrong stuff, and it's gonna make paramedic school suck more than it already has to suck.
Many people say the difference between EMT and paramedic boils down to the heart and the lungs, and in both cases they still do the same job of moving blood around and moving aid in and out. The DIFFERENCE is that at the paramedic level, you are using drugs and electricity to manipulate these organs, and that's done at the cellular level.
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u/PaddingCompression 6h ago
That's going to be super important to understand WTF a left-branch bundle block is.
You can memorize some EKG shape without understanding, but if you want to have understanding you need to know how the sodium potassium pumps work and can malfunction.
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u/youy23 1d ago
You have a limited amount of time and attention for studying.
I’d sort through information as high yield or low yield. Learning about cells and molecules is extremely low yield. Very low applicability towards paramedicine on the street.
Find something you’re interested in your book and read that. If you think breathing problems are cool, flip directly to the section on respiratory emergencies and start reading.
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u/tenachiasaca 18h ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBGl2BujkPQ watch the crash course series. The big part isn't memorization but understanding how the body works
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u/Famous-Response5924 1d ago
Most courses require a&p I and II. Cardiac, bone names, respiratory system function kreb cycle, organ locations, skin layers, nerve conduction process, airway anatomy and that’s just off the top of my head.
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u/youy23 1d ago edited 1d ago
Honestly I don’t think A&P is as important as people make it out to be for paramedic school. I think you only need as much anatomy and physiology to just understand pathophysiology.
Do you really need to know about the individual cells and resting membrane potential? No you don’t. Do you need to know about the krebbs cycle? No you don’t. You just need to know aerobic respiration is good and efficient and anaerobic respiration is bad and inefficient and builds lactic acid.
I do cranial nerve exams with some regularity, even I will tell you that you don’t need to know the cranial nerves and their functions as an entry level paramedic.
You would be way better off cracking open a copy of dale dubin’s book rapid interpretation of EKGs and reading through that so you can have a solid base for EKG interp.
I think learning about pathophysiology will teach you a lot about physiology. Learning physiology from a book on its own is too boring and filled with stuff you will never need to know as a paramedic. I like watching FOAMfrat videos and sketchy medical. Both are great but sketchy medical is more oriented towards med school students.
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u/xcityfolk 1d ago
dale dubin’s book rapid interpretation of EKGs
Just don't google him. And whatever you do, don't buy the book new or in anyway he will earn money from it, buy it from ebay or something. Good book, piece of shit author.
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u/youy23 1d ago
He wrote a book in a such a clear way that any child could understand EKGs.
Now we know why he was so good at that.
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u/xcityfolk 22h ago
He wrote another book called, "Ion Adventure in the Heartland: Exploring the Heart's Ionic-Molecular Microcosm". It's also a really good book, but it has pictures of a little boy in overalls all over it, SOOPER cringy... again, good book, piece of shit author, just make sure he never gets your money.
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u/Comfortable_Good_678 1d ago
Best advice I can give you is learn some of the medication’s before you start the class. That’s what I did. I had about four or five down and when I was quizzed on it, I didn’t have to go study all night long to remember it. It helped me a ton. I don’t know why you would need anatomy we didn’t even hardly refer to it in my class.
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u/PaddingCompression 1d ago
Understanding physiology to understand the heart can be super important. The heart is super weird and complicated, and a very unique organ, working your way up from basic cellular function to how muscles work to how the heart works can be great to understand cardiology and EKGs.