I Finally Did the Thing I've Been Telling You to Do

By John H. Spencer III, MBA, MSL, NRP, NCEE | Chief Operations Officer, Platinum Educational Group

Let me set the scene for you. It is April 2026. I am the Chief Operations Officer of a healthcare education technology company. We build testing platforms used by EMS programs across the country. I have spent the better part of a decade helping instructors improve student pass rates and helping students walk confidently into high-stakes exams. I have presented at national conferences on the subject. I have written about assessment strategy, item analysis, and the psychometrics behind adaptive testing.

And I had never once taken the NREMT Paramedic exam.

Let that sink in. The guy coaching the coaches had a little secret. I have been a licensed paramedic in Michigan since 1995, and I predate the era when NREMT certification was required for state licensure. So while I have been out here championing the National Registry process, I was doing it as someone who had genuinely never experienced it firsthand. I know. I know.

This year, I decided it was time to stop having that particular skeleton in my closet. I completed the required continuing education hours and registered to sit for the NRP exam. And because I apparently cannot just do things the normal way, I prepared the way any self-respecting education technology executive would: I used our own platform.

I logged in. I studied. I let our adaptive testing engine do what it is designed to do: push you into your weak areas, challenge your assumptions, and make practice harder than the real thing. Every item I missed was a small, humbling reminder that knowing something and being tested on something are two very different experiences. Our platform did not care that I had 30 years of field experience. It just kept asking questions.

Walking into the testing center, I will be honest with you: I was a little nervous and genuinely excited. Mostly excited. A small, quiet part of me was nervous. There is something about sitting in that chair, with the clock running and the adaptive algorithm doing its thing, that grounds you regardless of your credentials or job title. I was just a test taker. It was kind of great.

I passed. And I am not going to pretend that it did not feel good.

But here is the part I want you to take away from this, because there is a reason I am sharing it beyond just celebrating a personal milestone. The experience of preparing for and sitting through a high-stakes adaptive exam gave me something that 30 years of experience and a decade of assessment work could not fully replicate: I felt it.

I felt the pressure of an item I was not sure about. I felt the uncertainty of not knowing how many questions I had left or whether the algorithm was being generous or merciless. I felt the relief when it was over.

You already know that feeling. Your students are living it right now. And that shared experience matters more than I expected.

So if you have been putting off something you keep encouraging others to do, consider this your nudge. It is worth it. Even when, or maybe especially when, you already know how the story is supposed to end.

John Spencer, Chief Operations Officer, Platinum Educational Group, MBA, MSL, NRP, NCEE

(Yes, the NRP is new. That is the whole point.)