chazmedic Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 True enough, Dustdevil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SSG G-man Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 Okay, my county is slowly integrating paid crews in with the Volunteers. What happens to someone like me when the Volunteers are gone. I have a great career I love as a Soldier, but have a recently acquired passion for EMS. I can not afford the pay cut to go into EMS full time right now, but planned on it being my second career when I retired. So I guess I sit back and let my skills go to waste until I can jump in full time down the road? So then instead of a guy with several years of Volunteer experience jumping on a bus, you have a guy who went to school in the day and now is behind the times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JakeEMTP Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 SSG G-man, I not trying to be a smart ass,, but can't you take medic training in the Armed forces? I think that would only improve your skills, as well as take you closer to the Paramedic level. Just food for thought. I really don't know, just wondering out loud. :wink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chazmedic Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 Your thinking of the medic MOS 91-Whiskey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustdevil Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 Crosstraining is not always an option in the military. Sometimes they let you. Sometimes they don't. Depends on how critical your current job is as compared to the one you would be moving to. SSG is a senior NCO. They generally don't like to pay a senior NCO to do an entry level soldier's job. It's like paying doctor's wages for a janitor. Not too many people will do it. And even then, unless he is deployed, skills deterioration is an issue in the military. Military bases are full of young, healthy people. Regardless, I don't have any recommendations, or even much sympathy for this case. Again, rudimentary job market analysis on SSG's part would have clearly revealed these problems before you ever went to EMT school. This cannot be shocking new information to you. If you are really serious about making this a career after retirement, then there is absolutely no reason that the loss of a low volume basic volunteer gig should have any effect on your plan. Keep up your CEU's. Keep up with your knowledge base. You still have to go to paramedic school anyhow, so it's not like you have skills deteriorating. By the time you're ready to hit the field, you're going to be more than adequately prepared. Don't sweat it. You're not lamenting the loss of a job. It's just a hobby so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 I see most services go through a few stages of volunteer to paid. The first one is when they are a volunteer service, then they start paying paramedics only, and then they go to paid fully. I still find it hard to believe that the vast majority of American services can't pay for at least ONE paramedic to staff the truck. Worst case the paramedic responds to a call with the ambulance and a volunteer meets them at the scene to drive or a police officer drives the rig. Jsut a thought... Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SSG G-man Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 Well I would go to 91W (soon to be 68W) if they would let me. I am what is called AGR (Active Guard and Reserves). I am a National Guard Soldier who works full time at the Guards equivalent of the Pentagon. We have folks here and all over the country and the world. The problem is that there are only 8 slots for 91W's in the program. They do not like to send folks to schools if you are not going to use the skill. I do what I can to keep up my skill s and gain knowledge. I read all the EMS related magazines I can, I study the protocols, and I went to the EMS Today convention in Baltimore MD last week. I am about to join another volunteer station. They have several aid crews because they are the busiest station in the county. They have four ambulances, and sometimes have them all on the street at once and are getting mutual aid from neighboring stations. I can get as many calls there in a night as I can in a weekend or a week at my station. It is about 12-15 miles from home, so there will be not heading there when the pager goes off as I could at my home station. (I live a few hundred yards away.) No L&S on my POV. I wish I had realized earlier in life that this would be what I wanted to do so I could have worked it into my career. Sarge, out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rescue0ne Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 It's been said earlier in this thread that Volunteers do not deliver a quality of care that is equal to that of a Paid EMS provider Can you honestly make the qualified statement that "non-paid EMS providers do not deliver as good a quality of care as a paid provider does?" If someone does only get 1 or 2 calls a week w/ a rural EMS agency, then sure, it's possible they may fall through the cracks. However...I'm from Virginia (yes, Virginia, for all you who'd wish us to move to Canada ), and firstly, our State Office of EMS (referred to as OEMS hereafter) is a heckuva watchdog, as far as state enforcement goes. They're very easy to work with, and genuinely give-a-crap about quality of training/care. Our state also has the Virginia Association of Volunteer Rescue Squads (hereafter VAVRS), and the folks there go the extra mile, when it comes to offering extensive training programs, usually for free, that you'd otherwise have to pay outsourced instructors for. Virginia is divided into (Non-Profit) Regional EMS Councils, who take the training one step further, offering MORE extensive assistance and guidance to our providers, in whichever region the provider "runs" in. Many Virginia Community Colleges now have EMT-B and EMT-I as part of their course offerings. Some even have the NREMT-P program. There's no limit on how far a provider can go, only the limits they set upon themselves. The BLS/ALS Pre-hospital coordinators for the Regional EMS councils also review the "calls" for each agency monthly, and offers advice guidance...then enforces change if necessary, in regard to an agency, and or individual provider. Virginia, overall, does not suffer from a lack of qualified Emergency Medical Care, be it from Paid, or Non-Paid Providers. you will always have the one or two that just say "!@#$ IT", and go their own way, doing it however they want. Those types of people don't last long. There are some folks out there who will debate the issue until it's dead...but as long as there are people who "GIVE A !@#$", and are willing to volunteer their time & energy, in every aspect of PreHospital Emergency Care, then in the end...the quality of EMS care provided by volunteers will never suffer. I realize that demographics have alot to do with it, and what I've said may not necessarily hold true in all localities throughout the nation, but some of what has been said, against volunteer EMS, is just NOT TRUE as a whole, even though alot of comments made in the thread often group all volunteers together. If anyone cares to take a look...here's a prime example of an ALL Volunteer EMS Agency that really has it's act together. They're located in central virginia, and serve a divided population...Urban & Rural...and when I say rural, I mean really rural. Go here --> http://www.rescue1.org Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bandaidpatrol Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 Thirty plus years as a career man, and an instructor, I've seen an equal number of ignorant EMS personnel on either side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DELETED Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 DELETED Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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