down time

[donedeal]

what kinds of stuff do yall do when youre not out on a call? like when youre just hanging around the station? im really excited to get a job and kinda just want to know what its all like.

[Dustdevil]

First, look before you leap. Don't get too excited about down time until you know for sure you will actually have some! Do you know where you will be working? Some places have no down time. They have you driving around the city constantly, with no station to rest at, so you're stuck in the ambo for up to 12 hours at a time. That pretty well limits you to reading, listening to music, playing catch, Frisbee, or cards, sleeping, or eating. You get ambulance ass pretty quickly doing that.

But regardless of whether or not you have down time and a place to spend it or not, if you are new to the field, you need to be spending that time studying because you didn't learn a thing in EMT school. Don't worry about whether or not it's embarrassing to study in front of your partner. There is no shame in admitting you are new and just a basic. The shame is in doing nothing about it.

But yeah, not all ambo jobs are created equal, so make sure you know what the shifts are like before you take the first job offer you get. Because most of them aren't like Turd Watch where you sit on your ass in a station for most of the shift. In fact, they don't even do that in NYC.

Good luck!

[xselerate]

Yeah seriously someone needs to kick third watch in the ass. I sat in an ambulance fo 8 hours tonight on my ass. It's not the greatest fun in the world. I've only heard of rural services actually having a "station" to sit in. And if I had a station.... S L E E P

[strippel]

I work in a small city. We have stations. I was able to log onto the computer and check my mail, read the local news, and type one chart. My partner was down 4, and me 3 when we both left. Since she can type, she was actually able to finish a few. At one point, I did attempt to turn on the TV, but it didn't work. Luckily, Plant Engineering (this station is at a hospital) had the TV fixed, because it was on when we stopped by to restock. Didn't see what was on.

Yesterday was bad. We have 9 trucks day shift, and they were all busy. Our primary hospital was on divert, holding 32 in the ER for admit. The other hospital was pretty full, and the staff busy, attitudinal, and angry. The hot nurse was nice, and actually apologized for being pissy.

[Doczilla]

HALO 2.

[Dustdevil]

I work in a small city. We have stations. I was able to log onto the computer and check my mail, read the local news, and type one chart. My partner was down 4, and me 3 when we both left.

You do charts hours after dropping off the patient? :?

That's a disaster just waiting to happen.

[aussiephil]

I work on a small rural station, we make sure our vehicle is clean & stocked after each case. In between we try to have some fun with the nurses (the station is at the hospital), watch TV or play on the computer, as well as study. If we get bored with that we go for a drive & look at the scenery.

[kemt217]

I work for a small rural service, we have an office/classroom where we spend most of our time when not in the unit housed at a different location. Our units are at the hospital. We are working on funding to actually have to the office/classroom and units in the same building. The bays usually always need swept and the units washed. We wash them daily sometimes twice if the weather is nice. During the winter, it's too cold to wash them all the time. We have to wash outside.We watch tv, have the computer, and lots and lots of books to read. All the books have something to do with EMS.You can never study to much, that is my opinion anyway. We have a car we use to respond in and sometimes just cruise if it's late at night. Can't during the day, town folk get mad seeing us out "just burning tax dollars".

[Ridryder 911]

I come from a moderate metro/rural area. We are usually busy, we work 24 hr. Mainly check your unit, wash & clean the truck, base, then sleep as much as you can... you will need it. We have separate sleep rooms at all of stations (3'rd party EMS) with a day room and t.v in each sleep room and bay room.. mainly relax as much as possible, read, video games, movies etc...Our crew goes to the health club, and covers areas so everyone can go "work-out'.. It relieves the stress. Murphy's law- sleep time =1/4 of call volume. There may be days in some areas you never stop... and then there may be days it's a long shift with nothing. I have learned to take advantage of that.

If you do go very rural, because you are slow in call volume, has been studied to have a just high stress level as busy large metro areas. Down time .."waiting for the big one".. knowing you have to be prepared for anything... and usually your resources are limited as well.

Good luck,

R/R 911

[strippel]

"You do charts hours after dropping off the patient?"

Yes. You write charts when you can. You are available for calls after patient care is transferred and the truck is restocked. When you do 22000 , some days are pretty busy.