You probably practiced your head-to-toe assessment a bunch in your EMT class. Maybe more than any other skill in the EMT curriculum. If your class was or is anything like mine (as a student or a teacher) you performed the head-to-toe assessment  again and again. As much as we practice this skill in EMT class, I often wonder why so many EMT’s have such bad head-to-toe skills out on the street. It seems that, once we get out on the street, the systematic, thorough  head-to-toe assessment falls out of favor and quickly gets replaced with the faster, more direct focused assessment . That works just fine most of the time. If it didn’t, I figure it probably wouldn’t be such a universal phenomenon. (For the record, have you ever worked somewhere where this wasn’t the case? Neither have I.) The downside is that when the patient arrives who really needs a, honest-to-goodness, rapid, complete head-to-toe, we’re not up to the task. I happen to believe that patient assessment skills are one of the defining qualities of a talented EMT. Here are seven tips to keep your head-to-toe in top form. 1. Do head-to-toe assessments frequently. I mean more frequently than you’re doing it right now. You have a lot more opportunities to do a a good head-to-toe than you’re currently taking advantage of right now. Drop the surprised expression. This is just you and me talking here right? That infant in the car seat involved in the fender-bender could have used one. That trip and fall at the mall would have been prefect too and so would that dude punched in the bar fight.

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