Hey guys!

[EMTHopeful14]

Thank you all for your words of wisdom. It's nice to hear from people who actually have the experience. It looks like I have a lot more research to do. One thing I have researched though is the RN and BSN options. I have been advised by some to go ahead and get my BSN, and the University of Memphis offers a nice RN to BSN program that to be honest I'll most likely try to get into. My short term goal is to get my RN license and work from there. More of a small steps kinda goal.

Thank you all again for taking the time to respond. And I have to say I have a deep respect for you all, I may not know much about EMS, but I know it's not an easy job.

[island emt]

+1 for going into this with your eyes open and wilingess to ask for others to share our experience & knowledge.

Ditto on what Mike & Kate said above

[Just Plain Ruff]

I guess I should clarify. I'm not completely set on being a flight nurse. I understand that there's more to it than just the education I'll have before I would be able to do something like that. And I don't even know if it's something that I truly want to do, just an option.

I'm not going for my bachelor's in nursing, I'm going for my RN, which is a 2 year program. Also, in order to have a job and be able to survive during nursing school I will be going to EMT school, I figured that having a job in the medical profession would not only give me a little bit of experience, but also help me decide if working in the ER or not is something I'd want to do. Right now I see myself as a blank slate, I want to soak up as much experience as possible and learn as much as possible. In a few years time I may decide that I don't want to work in the trauma unit but I'd rather work in the cancer unit, or the maternity ward, or anywhere else. But I feel that in order to make those decisions I would best serve myself by getting out there and experiencing it all.

And while I'm sure that all the states are different, I haven't done a lot of research into what exactly it is that i can do once I finally get out of nursing school. I was going off of what the EMT professor at my school told me (about the flight nurse and trauma nurse).

Honestly, nursing is just something that I really want to do. I may be a newbie and have high hopes for my career, but forgive me, I'm almost 30 years old and finally discovered something that I can do for a living that I will actually love. And I am confident that the career path that I have chosen for myself is what I want to do and will be successful in.

Thank you for the advice.

Flight is one of the most dangerous career choices you can choose. Kudos to those that fly but I used to recommend top flight medics to go that route but with several of my friends dying in air ambulance crashes, I no longer recommend this career choice.

[DwayneEMTP]

I see many here talking about how much experience is needed to become a flight provider, but I don't believe that the advice given is accurate.

I know of several medics that work for flight services that had little experience, no degrees, and aren't very strong medics to boot. They were a warm body, and available, when a position needed filling.

I can't imagine any of these types of providers working for a service like Flight for Life, as the providers that I know there are all really, really strong. But FfL doesn't own the entire market. There are plenty of really weak flight providers just as there are weak street providers...

[island emt]

Only speaking from my personal experience Dwayne:

But here in the Northeast you will not even be considered without 5-10 years under your belt in a busy system and plenty of education to go along with it.

Most have advanced care/Critical Care Paramedic and some are dual Paramedic /RN's at time of hire.

Maybe in other parts of the country where there are helicopters based in every other town and competition is stiff to drum up business the standards are lower for the quality of flight Medics.

Those are the kind of services that have a high rate of aircraft incidents .

[medicgirl05]

In my area it doesn't take much at all to be a flight medic, however the flight nurse tends to have many more prerequisites. This is reflected in pay accordingly.

Flight medics don't really make much more than ground medics so most don't find the risk worth the benefit.

[Just Plain Ruff]

I see many here talking about how much experience is needed to become a flight provider, but I don't believe that the advice given is accurate.

I know of several medics that work for flight services that had little experience, no degrees, and aren't very strong medics to boot. They were a warm body, and available, when a position needed filling.

I can't imagine any of these types of providers working for a service like Flight for Life, as the providers that I know there are all really, really strong. But FfL doesn't own the entire market. There are plenty of really weak flight providers just as there are weak street providers...

Dwayne, I agree, I know of several medics who are pretty good medics, and several nurses who are pretty good nurses but no where near the Stellar resume that most here say you have to have. The one nurse I'm talking about has about 6 years of ER experience only, no icu, no nicu, no burn unit nothing other the ER experience.

I know of medics who have been on the streets for 4 years or shorter who are now flight medics.

Honestly after seeing some medics who got the job on the helicopter, I truly think it might be just who you know and not what and how much you know.

[medicgirl05]

Isn't the flight exam for medics pretty tough though?

I took a semester course at UTSA in Flight Medicine and that was a doozy for me. It was hard to remember all the different pressures and such. So I think the flight medics must have a pretty broad knowledge base even if they are lacking in experience? Just wondering out loud, I'm sure there are some flight medics here who could fill me in...

[DwayneEMTP]

I do know quite a few really smart medics that have told me that the flight exam is really, really tough. But not everyone needs it to be hired. In fact most of the medics that I know were hired without it on the condition that they pass it within a certain number of months...

I'm in no way dissing flight medicine. The flight medics that I'm friends with are all much stronger, smarter and more experienced medics than I'm every likely to be. I'm only disagreeing with the "There's only one way to get in" argument, that I know to be untrue in many places.

[paramedicmike]

To be fair, our new friend has aspirations in flight nursing. Depending on location that is a completely different political discussion from being a flight medic.

Not every flight service requires flight paramedic certification. Some services do require it within a certain time since hire. Some services don't require it at all. The certification exam is reputed to be exceptionally difficult but not impossible.

There is a growing perception of the dilution of flight crews. With the rapid expanse of flight programs nation wide (in the US anyway) and the need to fill crew slots, there has been much discussion and observation that some (many?) new hires would never have gotten hired "back in the day". This may be true. I know, and used to work with, several people who probably shouldn't be flying.

Nurse hiring is still different from medic hiring. Nursing standards as related to hiring for flight jobs still tend to be higher than those for medics. So comparing the two is not necessarily an apples to apples discussion.