Call Volumes

[Guest]

Hey all,

Im curious for those of you employed in rural/frontier services, what are your call volumes like? Do you like the volume you receive?

One of the services I'm applying to is considered very rural, and the peripheral bases (where you have to start out as a junior employee) usually have call volumes of less then 30 a month. If you stay with the company long enough, you can bid for busier stations in this metropolis of the north, but it usually takes a few years of sitting around and doing nothing for the first bit of your career ...

So my question, how do you handle sitting around for 12 hours at a time, when you may not move for days at a time? Im very young, and part of me wants to be busy, just for the sake of being busy as I can't stand just sitting around and doing nothing ...

Any advice/comments welcome!

Zach

[Dustdevil]

Wish I could answer that one for ya. I have worked some relatively rural places, but even there I ended up making at least a couple of runs per 24 hour shift, if not three times that. Beats the hell out of an urban agency where I would make eight to eighteen runs in a 12 or 24 hour shift.

I like to sit and screw off as much as the next guy. But man, if I don't make at least a couple runs a shift, I'm going to start feeling pretty rusty.

But anyhow, so long as you are getting enough runs to keep yourself sharp, rural is beauty. The runs are better. The people are more genuine and appreciative. And generally, the people are just plain sicker than urban dwellers when they finally call an ambo. Combined with the extended transport times, it adds up to a much more serious practice of medicine than all the 5 minute drunk runs in the big city.

[Guest]

I work for a fairly rural service, however we do run more calls a month than what your describing. Last month my partner and i ran 50 calls. we were the busiest ambulance that month but we do average 20 to 25 calls a month per crew. However we do respond in city also. We have two ambulances 24 hr's a day running so. hope this helps

[paramedicmike]

This is just the opposite from places I've seen. In my experience, people start at the busier stations and bid, based on seniority, to get to the slower stations. Not that it matters much...just different.

As for sitting around for 12 hours, bring some books. Split your reading to cover some EMS related topics and some fun reading. Any exercise equipment in the station? Can you rig up something for some isometrics? Bring some movies. Taking classes? Great time to do homework. Not taking classes? Why not? You have some great time to do homework! How into the job is your partner? Would that person be willing to work with you on skills review and practice?

I'm with Dust, too. I get bored at work pretty quickly if we don't have many runs. I feel rusty and unuseful as a provider. My coworkers give me plenty of crap because during down time I've usually got my nose in a book. However, rural stations at which I've worked have generally had a couple runs over the course of the day. Those that you get tend to present patients who are just a little more sick than the citiots out there. They generally don't call until they *really* need you.

Then your longer transport times, as Dust noted, give you the opportunity to provide patient care for much longer periods of time.

There are ways to keep yourself busy. But it does make time drag when you're slow.

Hope this helps.

-be safe.

[Guest]

Yes, I realise the way they bid on stations is a littler backwards, but that's only because ALS is only available in the main city. So if you want to be trained ALS, you need to work in the city. Their contract is a lil different, but that's neither here nor there.

Im more concerned about how I'm going to deal with the very few calls received should I end up working there ...

Zach

[Dustdevil]

Yes, I realise the way they bid on stations is a littler backwards, but that's only because ALS is only available in the main city.

What do you mean by "main city?" Are you talking about different cities, or are you saying that the central part of the city gets ALS, while the suburban areas of the same city do not get ALS?

[Guest]

No no, I'm talking about differnt cities. In all honesty, I would say this service has one of the largest response areas in Canada, perhaps even North America. This 'district' has roughly 14 stations, with literally a 7 or 8 hour drive between the main city and the furthest station. The main city has 3 stations which are staffed 24/7, and the other stations will have 1 or 2 day cars staffed for 12 hours, and the remaining 12 hours covered by an on-call crew.

Zach

[kemt217]

Hey TJ, I can answer this for ya. We have the call volume you described. Lots of books and training videos. We spend some of the time from our shift at the shed cleaning, restocking, doing inventory, and doing regular daily checks on the rigs. We go home for hour lunch/supper breaks, unless we have a call. We are also able to go to school activities which helps. Because we are in a small town and the boss says it's ok, we are able to go when our kids have school stuff going on such as parent teacher conferences and things like that. In the fall we work the football games. We have a new race track opening so we will be working the races next month, everyone is looking forward to that. You find things to do if you want, if not you watch tv or go down to the gas station and b.s. with the cops or locals but not for more than 30 minutes. We don't go out and drive around in the ems car or anything unless it is really late because people gripe we are wasting tax dollars. We don't take the rigs out at all unless it is for a run(of course), to fuel, wash ,do checks or training, otherwise they are tucked in the shed cause people around here would scream!

Have a good weekend!!

[rat115]

Here, we have 12-hour oncall shifts. We don't spend our time at the shed unless we're on a run, doing cleanup, or training. Some of the county commisioners are talking about having 12 on duty shifts for 2 people day and I don't know what they're wanting to do nights, but our director is fighting that because we can often go a week without a single call.

I've been told that in years past the call volume averaged at about 550 runs a year including transports into the cities. Last year we had just a few more than 600. This year everyone is amazed at how busy we are because we're already over 100 calls and we haven't had anything major out on the interstate yet this year. (But of course, spring breakers start coming through here in a couple of weeks, so who knows how long that will last.)

[Guest]

Yes, I have thought about this as the perfect opportunity to do the Bachelors degree I want to pursue.

Will keep the tips in mind, thanks!

Zach