Does anyone here just work for a medical transport company?

[EMT613]

For reasons I am not going to get into for right now, I am going to take a break for maybe a year at applying to EMS agencies and am instead going to seek work with a medical/ambulance/BLS transport company. You know, one of those which moves people around whom just can't be thrown into a car for their trip from the nursing home to the dialysis place, etc. I think when I broke my jaw and was moved from one emergency facility to another where I was going to actually have the jaw operated on-at another hospital-one of those took me on my merry, dilaudid(sp?)-hazed way. Transport work can be a lot less exciting than EMS, yes, but those patients do go critical all the time. And the experience can be very good to have. And at times when a public system may be overloaded, such as New York's weather troubles of last year, they're called in to help.

Does anyone here do that kind of work, and what does it pay?

thanks,

Jeff

[ERDoc]

It was many moons ago, but I used to work for TransCare in Suffolk. I have no idea what they pay now, but it was $8/hr when I was there. It is actually a good learning experience as you will learn more about medicine than you will doing 911, especially if you take the time to read the charts for the transfers you do and then pick up a book to read about the pathology.

[Just Plain Ruff]

Jeff, why not work for a dual role type agency where they do both?

You could request to work the transfer trucks and if they need you to work the 911 units you could jump in and get the adrenaline fix so to say?/

That would keep your skills fresh but also keep you out of the limelight so to speak?

There are quite a few of those hybrid services out there.

Just a thought. Why limit yourself?

[ClutzyEMT]

I agree with ERDoc~~you will get a lot more medicinal knowledge if you take time to read the charts and research anything you don't understand afterwards.

I worked for a service many moons ago that did both 911 and transport. They owned three ambulances and two wheelchair vans and we were always busy! We were scheduled for 24's on the rig and the next day we would be "back up" for the transports and wheelchair vans. Longest transports we took were eight hours away, shortest ones were right in town. I was there for six years before the long distance transports really got to me and I went on my merry way to a 911 only service but I cannot stress enough just how much more medical/medicine/conditions/ailments/treatments/surgical knowledge etc. I learned from that job than I probably would have working the same amount of years in a 911 only service.

The pay was about the same as 911 only services but we killed it on overtime due to the transports......