Thinking of becoming an EMT

[enigmike]

Hello everyone!

I'm new to this site and the EMT community in general. Currently I'm researching everything concerning what it's like to be an EMT to see if it's a career fileld for me and I would appreciate any feedback I can get to some of my questions. You might want to bear with me because I have a lot of questions and like to research things throughly and some of these might be stupid questions but

1) How stressful is the job? Everyone has heard of stories of burntout EMT's, crappy companies, 60 hours of work a weeks and firefighter unions taking up all the jobs. Are any of those true and how often do they occur and if they do, how do you deal with them?

2) What happens when you make a mistake (other then the obvious stuff)? Let me explain. I know people sometimes die as an occupational hazard but like anything in life there is a learning curve and people are going to make mistakes. Do you automatically lose your job over the fact that your mistake resulted in a person being hurt or dying? What are some of them that can get you fired or sued? What kind of insurance should you get to protect yourself?

3) What's an average day like? What's a really bad day like? What's a really good day like?

4) I live in California. What's the job climate like here meaning how hard is it to find a job here and what's the work environment and attitude towards EMT's and Paramedics in the state of California?

5) How often would one work a 12 hour or a 24 hour shift? Is that usual?

6) How much sleep does an EMT get on average? I know that question has a ton of variables depending on the job, time of day, weather and such but a rough average would be nice.

Those are about everything I can think of at this moment. Any answers and comments would be appreciated. Thanks again!

[kndoug1]

Hey! Welcome to the City...

Honestly, the answer to the majority of your questions depend a lot on where you live and what company you work for. Where abouts in California do you live? Jobs in southern California seem to be pretty abundant, but jobs in northern California where I am at seem to be pretty scarce, but not impossible to find. As for your question about sleep, it really depends on the company you are with. Is it a 911 system or an IFT company? How busy is the area that you cover? Those things really differ from place to place. As for stress, yea, the job can be stressful but I believe that it is what you make it. If you let the stress of every call get to you...well, you get my point. I have only been at this for a few months now, and yes it is stressful, but I don't let each call that doesn't go exactly the way I want it to get to me. And just because a mistake gets made, doesn't mean you get fired...once again, it depends on the company you work for, what exactly happened, and the entire situation as a whole...not everything is going to go exactly the way you want it to and shit is going to happen. We are only human, so don't let the thought of a lawsuit keep you from pursuing this career.

Hope some of this helps, but like I said, I have only been at this a few months so hopefully the more experienced people can give you some better and more specific information.

Good luck!

[Bieber]

Hello everyone!

I'm new to this site and the EMT community in general. Currently I'm researching everything concerning what it's like to be an EMT to see if it's a career fileld for me and I would appreciate any feedback I can get to some of my questions. You might want to bear with me because I have a lot of questions and like to research things throughly and some of these might be stupid questions but

Hi, and welcome to the site! There's no stupid questions here (trust me, I've taken that challenge already), and you'll find that even if a question seems silly to you, the folks here are more than happy to help you in any way they can.

1) How stressful is the job? Everyone has heard of stories of burntout EMT's, crappy companies, 60 hours of work a weeks and firefighter unions taking up all the jobs. Are any of those true and how often do they occur and if they do, how do you deal with them?

The job is honestly as stressful as you want it to be. Like any job, it has its pros and its cons and not every day is awesome, but as far as how stressful it is, that's all on you. There's stressful situations that arise, but they're only going to become an issue if you don't learn to cope properly--at least, that's what I believe. At the same time, you have a lot of responsibility on your shoulders as an EMS provider, and you have to treat that with a hearty amount of respect.

2) What happens when you make a mistake (other then the obvious stuff)? Let me explain. I know people sometimes die as an occupational hazard but like anything in life there is a learning curve and people are going to make mistakes. Do you automatically lose your job over the fact that your mistake resulted in a person being hurt or dying? What are some of them that can get you fired or sued? What kind of insurance should you get to protect yourself?

What happens when you make a mistake? Well, if you're worth half the money you spent on your education, you'll fess up to it and face the consequences like an adult. As to whether or not you automatically lose your job over a mistake, that's all unfortunately situational. In all malpractice suits, there are four parts: a duty to act (which is established by you being an emergency provider), breech of that duty (i.e., you failed to act as another provider of your level of education would in that situation), proximate cause (you were the actual cause of the injuries), and actual injury (as in, there was actual harm that resulted as a direct cause of your actions or inaction). I'm not a lawyer, and that's paraphrased from my paramedic book, but you should get the idea. Every situation is different, and you have to understand that we're working in less than ideal and emergent conditions. Nobody expects you to be perfect, only for you to act as a competent provider would in your situation, and to follow the creed of primum non nocere (first, do no harm).

3) What's an average day like? What's a really bad day like? What's a really good day like?

Depends on where you work. For me, an average day is about six calls. A bad day would be more than twelve calls, with no time in between to work on charts or take a quick break. A really good day, for me, is steady.

4) I live in California. What's the job climate like here meaning how hard is it to find a job here and what's the work environment and attitude towards EMT's and Paramedics in the state of California?

I don't know a whole lot about California, but I've heard it's less than ideal educational standards, heavily fire based, and very conservative protocols.

5) How often would one work a 12 hour or a 24 hour shift? Is that usual?

Around here we work twelve hour shifts, two days on, two days off, three days on, two days off, two days on, three days off.

6) How much sleep does an EMT get on average? I know that question has a ton of variables depending on the job, time of day, weather and such but a rough average would be nice.

As much as you want, if you're in a twelve hour system. With twenty four hour shifts, it would depend on how busy the system is.

Those are about everything I can think of at this moment. Any answers and comments would be appreciated. Thanks again!

You're welcome! Now I have a question for you, why do you think you might want to become an EMT? If you become an EMT, are you planning on taking it all the way to paramedic? What are your academic goals?

[EMT338]

Im in the same boat. I made the decision to become an EMT and am in the application process now. I had/have all the same questions you do. I have so many different levels of nervous about this job/lilfestyle lol, but at the end of the day this is what I wanna do.....It's gonna be hard but super rewarding. I think you should go for it! You will be giving back to your community in a huge way! Good Luck with your decision:)