Thinkin about becoming an emt, please answer a few ?s for me

[spenac]

Glad to have you here. With your current degree nursing should not take alot more time. As far as EMS, don't plan on getting a job as an EMT-B that would support you. If you choose to pursue EMS enroll into a paramedic program, but even with that income is not very good. As far as your history, a good lawyer might be able to help since things happened as a minor. But the tickets really could keep you from a job in EMS. Really check into it before you spend the money and time.

[Just Plain Ruff]

EMS is a calling, heaven knows none of us here do it to get rich.

Explore all your options, keep an open mind and when you do get hired, never, I repeat never stop learning.

[catmasher]

I understand its a calling, and i feel it would be were i belong in a lot of ways.

Fortunatley for me, it does not have to support me as i run an ebay business and have a wife that is a cpa for a large oil company.

I am heading down the road in a few minutes to talk with the local crews, and i am going to offer my services as a volunteer while i figure out the legal side of this.

[Just Plain Ruff]

good luck.

be prepared for Dust to call you on the volunteer thing though.

I'd do a couple of ride alongs first to see if you are even gonna like it.

There is an old saying that ems is 99 percent pure boredom and 1 percent sheer terror.

[Dustdevil]

Hey Masher,

Thanks for sticking around to make a clearer case. A lot of guys would have just said, "FU!" and left by now. This bodes well for you. And I must say I am certainly more comfortable with you now than I was after your original post. You never have come across as a bad guy or a less than intelligent guy by any means. But it did appear that you still had an immature and reckless streak in you that needed time to work out. Perhaps that was an incorrect impression, and I'm glad you talked it out.

That being the case, the odds remain about the same, except that you seem eloquent enough to explain yourself and possibly minimise any doubts a potential employer may have about you, if he is on the fence. But like we said, drivers insurance rates will frequently dictate who they can and cannot hire, regardless of how they feel about you. How many and what kind of violations you can have is going to vary from place to place, so you have a shot. And again, the other stuff will be on a case by case basis too. I think if you get through the state and the school checks, you're probably in a good position to get a job somewhere.

I think the biggest problem now is that you have been given a very unrealistic impression of what kind of education is required for this field. Yes, EMT school is just a four week first aid course that nobody with a BA is going to fail without really trying. But that is really all it is. It is just an entry level certificate that allows you to start working towards a paramedic licence. Unless you already have a year of Anatomy & Physiology, Microbiology, Psychology, Sociology, and Chemistry behind you (which you may), then any paramedic education that is worth having will take you two years to complete. If you already have all that, then you can bang it out in about a year of almost full-time study. That's not really significantly less than nursing school. After that, It's going to take you a couple of years before you really know what you are doing. And, of course, you're still probably going to be making half of what your mother makes.

You also seem to have a bit of an unrealistic view of what we do. I can assure you that this job will not satisfy anybody's craving for adrenaline. Even in the busiest system, ninety percent of your patients are just plain old sick people who are whining and moaning and vomiting about ailments that you can neither see, diagnose, nor do anything about. Most of the spectacular wrecks you see on the freeway result in everybody walking away under their own power with nothing more than a sore neck. There is nothing heroic or exciting about driving these people to the hospital, and there is nothing you can do for them. Even that initial thrill you get from bombing through red lights with your siren going fades very quickly. If it doesn't you get killed either through recklessness, or by your partner for endangering his life. The truth is, this is really not much more than being a high-priced (not to be confused with high paid) taxi service. If you want in because it looks fun and exciting on Turd Watch, then don't bother. That isn't what it is like, even in NYC. But if you want in because the intellectual challenge of MEDICINE is just the most interesting thing you can imagine, then I would like to see you join us. But again, it's going to take about two years before you are ready to do that.

As for volunteering, yes, I will strongly advise against that. You can search the forum for topics with the terms "volunteer" and "volunteering" in them if you want a lot of eye-crossing discussion about it, but the bottom line is that volunteers are damaging to the profession of EMS, and an insult to all of us who bust our arses to make it a true profession. For every wanker who makes a part-time hobby out of playing Johnny & Roy, there is somebody with two years of serious education who can't find a job. And, of course, volunteer EMS is not a helpful experience to the newbie. It is nothing more than exposure that tends to leave you with bad habits and unrealistic views that are extremely hard to break once you get into the profession. Personally, I deep-six any application I receive that has mention of volunteer experience on it. I'd rather have a clean slate candidate right out of school than somebody with two years of bad habits I am going to have to break, wouldn't you?

You can make a decent living in EMS in many places. North Texas is not one of those places, unless you want to be a firemonkey too. That's a whole nother story right there. But if you are a two-income family, then yes, you can be comfortable as a medic in North Texas if you are lucky enough to get on with one of the VERY few 911 EMS employers in the area that aren't fire departments. The reason there are so few jobs? Volunteers. Although your wife makes good money, give some consideration to the long term strain it puts on a relationship when the wife begins to think all her hard work is just to support your hobby.

Anyhow, hit me up with a PM if you want to discuss anything about your area and Texas EMS in general. Good luck!