What can a volunteer do in a First Aid Hospital?

I am a member of a local volunteer rescue squad and am only certified in CPR and First Aid.  I'm impatient to learn more and don't wish to wait until I begin EMT training.  Anybody know of a useful medical site that would teach basics?

• Answer:

  There's quite a bit of theoretical material you can learn that will augment your existing first aid training and future EMT training. Some suggestions: Physiology The systems of the body, what they are, how they work, how to describe them using medical terminology. Muscles, bones, organs, etc. FA & EMT training goes into some detail but you'll find yourself interacting with nurses, doctors, paramedics and other healthcare professionals who know a lot more and you'll want to be able to understand what they are telling you. https://www.coursera.org/course/humanphysio Making a diagnosis There's a science and process behind making a diagnosis, not just a guess at what is wrong with them. You will have encountered signs and symptoms in basic first aid, they're the primary indicators but there's also other things like past medical history, current medications, and so on. I found this Coursera course when I was looking for the link for the Physiology one, and it looks quite interesting - but just to be clear, I haven't taken it so don't really know the suitability or quality of it. https://www.coursera.org/course/clinprobsolv ECG / Heart Rhythms One of the biggest areas that students have difficulty with on the EMT course is the ECG. Not using the machine, which is simply enough, but interpreting the graphs. I found watching Youtube videos of various heart rhythms very useful. Quizzes Test your knowledge and see what you don't know. I used this during my training: http://smartmedic.com/quiz/ With regards to actual EMT skills, this sort of learning is heavily practice based and I don't believe you'll get much out of studying text/videos. Besides, you'll be tempted to try and use this then on patients, which will be outside your scope of practice and could get you in a lot of trouble.