Good Places To Work

[sdiener]

Brothers,

I am looking for jurisdictions that are EMS only, preferably not AMR, and progressive - such as Austin, Tx... Does anyone know of any?

BTW - i am looking to get a lot of experience, and I am a new paramedic. I really am not into fighting fire.

Thanks all

Sam

[Just Plain Ruff]

Are you interested in working in Missouri or kansas?

A little clarification of where you are wanting to work. The US has a tremendous amount of area and just asking for places kind of will give you a million different answers.

Maybe post your top 20 places you'd like to work?

does quality of life outside of EMS matter to you or are you just wanting a place to get tons of experience and then get inevidently burned out?

[Dooger]

Hey Sam...

You interested in working in Canada? I've work for a great EMS only service with high volume, medics on all the cars, lots of OT (if you want it), great health plan, no on-call & decent wages. And despite what you might hear it's a great place to live & raise a family.

Think about it...

:wink:

[sdiener]

I think that the quality of life would be extremely important to me. I would be moving away from my nice family in a nice home in maryland, and it would be nice to be in an area with a lot of young people like myself (22) to hang out with and an area with a lot of culture. I wouldn't like to get burned out, but I know that this is a byproduct of being a paramedic in any large city......

I guess I am looking for progressive systems, that treat their employees well, have a good record of service, in an area that would be suitable for someone like me. The location really isn't much of an issue.

[p3medic]

Consider Boston, great city for young people, lots of colleges and clubs, plenty of urban medicine to go around....requires city residency within 6 months of hire, although not strictly enforced, must work at least 1 year BLS. It is required regardless of your current level of education. ALS positions are promoted from within, very competitive.

[sdiener]

p3 medic, I found it very interesting when i looked into Boston's ALS system works.

Do they pay you as a BLS provider when you have an ALS cert? What makes an ALS provider want to work in a system that makes them function at the basic level?

[flight-lp]

You actually had a great idea in your first post. Austin / Travis County is a wonderful service, all ALS, you can start as a Paramedic instead of that "work as an EMT for a year crap", they have good protocols for all levels, and career advancement is very realistic (special ops, rescue, flight). Cost of living outside of Austin city limits isn't bad and starting pay is some of the highest in the state. The best part is you don't have to be a fire monkey to earn that decent rate! Clubs, young people, 6th street.........................enough said! Check it out.........

http://www.atcems.org/

www.atcemsea.org

[croaker260]

SHort and sweet:

I would also recommend my service, third service county based, very very nice protocols. Definitely a completely different medical and operational experience than most other places.

General discussion from the time of our last hiring here, discusses schedule and pay (although check out our website for latest):

http://forums.firehouse.com/showthread.php...unty+paramedics

Next hiring prob this summer or next fall, don't know for sure.

Keep checking your web site:

www.adaparamedics.org

and our SWO's:

http://www.adaweb.net/departments/paramedics/swo2006.asp

Please feel free to ask any questions you want, here or in PM or via Email

colemedic@hotmail.com.

'Nuff said!

[p3medic]

The pay at the BLS rate is as high if not higher than the ALS pay at most other systems in the state, so financially its not a hit....1 year isn't that long when you really break it down, you have 6 months of it gone by the time you are finished with the academy and field internship....6 months of working, learning the way the system works, geography, etc....it goes by fast....I can certainly understand why someone with an ALS cert wouldn't want to come here and have to work BLS, but to me it was worth it. The city has everything your looking for, third service, good pay, good protocols, all our con-ed is either overtime or reassignment, good equip etc....The fact you hold an ALS level cert is no guarantee you'll ever use it here, the promotional process to medic is very competitive, usually 4-8 position per posting, with 50 or so taking the written, practical and oral interview for those spots....and even if you become one of the 4-8, there is still a possibility that you won't get promoted depending on your performance in clinical rotations or field internship.....even with all that, the job is great, IMHO.

[Just Plain Ruff]

sounds great, spend thousands of dollars on a medic license and then never get to use your skills. So what happens to those skills for those who have to sit out a year or more doing bls work.

I can see how the draw for a bls person would be big in boston but I'm sure not many here on the city would want to regress back to bls for a chance(slim) to get to paramedic level in Boston.

I wouldn't but then again that's just me.

I do know that Boston is a happenin city though.