Canadian in California looking for work

[treaux]

To clarify, you can do quite well in California and we do have emergency ambulances that don't do inter-facility transfers. As for reciprocity, it is a bit of a pain as they don't have an easy way for you to challenge the EMT-P. If you were to get certified by the National Registry, you could apply for a California Paramedic license however.

As far as money goes, San Diego will not provide as good of a living as the San Francisco bay area. Starting wages here are around $65k a year on the ambulance and $70-95k for a fire paramedic. I and many other medics here break the 6 figure mark with a moderate amount of overtime (usually 2-3 shifts a month extra). We have one medic who does nothing but work who hit the $250k mark last year.

[AnthonyM83]

My advice would be to stay away from California if you're seeking real EMS work, but if you do I suggest "NorCal" rather than "SoCal". I've heard San Diego is a really nice place to work and EMS is 'decent' for California, but pay is low. Stay away from Orange County and Los Angeles County...it's more pseudo-EMS. ALS is FD only with EMT's as ambulance drivers and "load em up" guys.