basic questions about qualifications

[Just Plain Ruff]

Rush, well I don't know about your thought process but I would go ahead and get the EMT, forgo first responder unless you are in an area that uses First reponders.

Get your emt and then get on with a transfer service or a service who does 911 if you can. You can also get on with a volunteer service too. That will get your feet wet.

Do not, I repeat do not go into paramedic until you know that this career is for you. If you have your sights on Finance then maybe taking additional finance courses instead of EMT is for you. I don't know your thought process though.

If you are just wanting to help somewhere I'm sure there are countless volunteer options for you to consider and if you are looking to make some money doing this you are looking in the wrong place. If finance is your career of choice then what's the possiblity of doing a paid internship in a finance related capacity.

Just some thoughts,

[rush99]

Ok thanks for telling me about the First Response, that sounds like a good idea, ill look into it. I didnt just want to drive an ambulance, but i just was uninformed and thought that that was just what the lower trained members of the crew do, aid the medic and drive while they work in the back. This first response sounds like a great way for me to get my feet wet like i wanted, thanks.

[Just Plain Ruff]

Rush didn't you say you were looking to make a few extra dollars working in ems?? As a first responder you are a volunteer and will not get paid. Plus you have to basically probably have to buy your own equipment and hope that the first responder agency will replace it for you. If you are not in an area with first responders and you have fire department coverage or EMS coverage then you mght need to move or drive a distance to find a place. Most first responders work out of their current jobs and if they are available for a call they go. You probably wont have a first responder station unless that agency has a station.

Also prepared to be bored for you might not get called out for a call all day.

[Dustdevil]

I didnt just want to drive an ambulance, but i just was uninformed and thought that that was just what the lower trained members of the crew do, aid the medic and drive while they work in the back.

Ah, okay. Well, you were correct about that. That is indeed how it works in systems that suck enough to have a lower trained member on the crew. But, unfortunately for you, even those systems still require that lower trained member to at least be an EMT, which is a few months of training.

Generally, we try not to entertain the fleeting fantasies of tourists who aren't serious about making this profession a career. It is a profession, not a part-time hobby until you decide what you want to do when you grow up. Please, either choose it or leave it. We don't need anymore tourists.

[fallout]

I don't see the problem with having a lower trained member on a ambulance. I stepped on a transfer ambulance as a basic fresh out of school while I did the remainder of my intermediate and paramedic classes. I found it to be a valuable experience.

I learned to apply my patient assessment skills to real human beings instead of some mannequin with an instructor verbalizing all that happened. I also learned many of the pitfalls of moving patients and safely driving both emergency and non-emergency in such a way as to minimize both the risk of motor vehicle collision and accidental needle sticks to my partner from stopping hard, etc. I could continue ad nauseum about skills learned on the real ambulance that aren't taught in class.

Another major advantage was applying what I was seeing in current patients to the new material I was encountering in class. Had I never had the care of actual complex patients in my hands, the pathophysiology education I recieved would have been far less useful. Gaining access to experienced paramedic helped immensely. I could pick more brains, so to speak, regarding patients I had seen and what may have been happening with them.

In an ideal world, it would be great to run dual paramedic trucks and have lengthy precepted time for every paramedic. In reality, at least in my area, we are too short paramedics to ever work like that. So, I set out to be a good BLS provider who uses his brain to do all the appropriate BLS intervention I can and then set up for the direction the paramedic is heading in terms of ALS.

The medical director I was under for several months always said he expected us to think about the patient's condition on the most complicated level we could, regardless of what our certification level was. It is firmly ingrained in me that a good BLS provider is the foundation of a good paramedic. You cannot be one without the other.

I really can't support the concept that having anything other than paramedics on an ambulance is negative, when the foundation of your patient care and treatment is founded in your skills before you have access to the monitor and the fancy drugs.

I may be a basic, but I take my job damn seriously and really do work to be very well educated on patient care. I am not perfect, and have a ton of experience to gain, but I won't ever become a highly skilled provider sitting at a table reading a textbook and not seeing the patients I study about.

[KE5EHI]

Rush,

To answer what I believe you are asking. If you're looking into the field, find a local school (usually community colleges and tech schools have EMT-Basic) and see what classes are offered. We have both semester long and summer long (2-month 'fast-track') classes. I took the fast track class here, which was 10 hours a day, four days a week. We had to do an eight hour ER clinical and two 12-hour ambulance rides. As far as cost:

Standard Costs

School

Books

Materials (if any, i.e. stethoscope)

Usually some sort of testing fee (i.e. National Registry test)

State/City/County license (depends on what state on what all you have to have)

Example for me:

School ~$400

Books ~$100

Materials ~$30

NREMT License/Test ~$75 (I think)

State License ~$100

Granted these numbers can vary greatly from state to state. You might also have to get an endorsement on your license, which in some states might cost. Here in Oklahoma, you don't have to do that.

Once you get your EMT-B, then you have to find a servive to work for. Most services have EMT-B positions, but sometimes they aren't very high in demand. You can look for transfer services or 911 services, or services that do both. Then talk to the company about how they operate with Basics. Some BLS services you might be running the call in the back with a patient, some your primary role is driving and assisting a paramedic or intermediate on scene. And example is like here at EMSA, every truck as at least one paramedic. Normally the other crew member is a basic who drives, but as part of EMSA's extra training, we are put through the same academy as paramedics so we are exposed to the ALS side. Granted most services don't go this far, but you can always learn on your own. It all depends on the service itself and the partner(s) you work with. My first partner let me do just about everything I could on run-of-the-mill calls that was within my scope of practice. One bad trauma's, I would take him the cot and backboard and then return to the truck to get everything setup for him so as soon as we got the patient in the back, we were running hot to the hospital and he had everything he needed to rapidly work the patient. On cardiac arrests, I would pretty much hand my partner what I knew he was going to need. By this I mean that I might be a basic, but I'm part of an ALS crew. I'm expected to know what's going on with a patient to where my partner rarely needs to ask/tell me to do something before I'm already doing it.

The thing to keep in mind about all of that though is that we run a high call-volume service and will do everything from transfers to traumas to arrests in a single night sometimes. We run 12-hour shifts and during the summer each truck on the street will run in the neighborhood of 8-13 calls per night. When you get to smaller 911 services, a lot of them run 24-hour shifts or a combination of 24- and 12-hour shifts, and you might only get 2-4 calls on average per shift.

So all of that said, you pretty much just need to see what services are open in your area, how they operate, and what positions they have and what's expected of you.

[rush99]

KE5EHI, that was perfect, exactly what i wanted to know, thanks so much.

[KE5EHI]

KE5EHI, that was perfect, exactly what i wanted to know, thanks so much.

Your welcome, hope that helped. The other advantage with a Basic license is you can use it other places than just EMS services. Say your college for example. A lot of colleges will pay you (little, but it's money) to be an 'on-call first responder' for the campus. If there is an accident, they send a page and if you can, you first respond. A lot of casino's here pay extra for security with EMT-B as first responders. There's a lot of industry jobs that also pay extra. So it's not just a EMS only license. There are four standard levels of responders.

First Responders - Pretty much trained in CPR and basic skills like how to recognize/treat shock and when it's necessary to manually immobilize c-spine.

EMT-B (Basic) - Trained in most non-invasive treatments and allowed use of a couple of "medications" like oral glucose and activated charcoal. This is generally your lowest level you will find giving patient care from an ambulance.

EMT-I (Intermediate) - Basic + allowed to start IV's, intubate, and use simple drugs (like cardiac drugs)

EMT-P (Paramedic) - Pretty much knows it all, don't ya :wink:

Then there are other levels within those like Critical Care Paramedics. This can vary from state-to-state on what levels are available in those EMS systems and what is allowed by each level, but those are generally what you will find around the nation.

Just remember, what you learn in school basically allows you do pass a test to get your license. You really don't know jack until you work in the back of a truck... van, golf cart, whatever. You will learn more in the back of a truck in a few weeks than basic class will teach you in a semester. An EMT license is really just a license to learn, it's up to you to make the most of it.

[1aCe3]

nice summary. If only people knew what we actually did. Just this morning I was at the usual gas station getting some diesel before puting us in service. The gas attendent pointed at the side of the ambulance and asked if we were hiring. Then he was like.. "yeah.. all I need is my driver's licence right?"

[rush99]

KE5EHI, thanks for the additional info these two posts of yours are the two best resources ive found, Can you also work youth sporting tournaments and events with an EMT-B?