Posted: 5/5/2008 7:02:40 AM EDT
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Ok, I just got out of the Army and I just started school with my MGIB money and I am majored into getting an AS degree in EMT-Paramedic, mostly because I think I'd be good at it and it would be more interesting then my other alternatives. So to any EMS types out there, is there a good chance to find a job as a Paramedic? Whats the work usually like? I keep hearing people at school asking me if I am a firefighter when I tell them my major, should I be looking into that? What should I know before I start spending money on classes? Any advice in general would be appreciated. thanks. |
| In Texas working as a Paramedic only, you will do well to make $30,000 a year working at an ER or with an Ambu service. They do a ton of work but are just not paid well. If you are interested in being a firefighter then do that and make more dough and have better hours. SS |
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Get yer medic, come to NY. My dept tops medics(after 12 yrs) at 72k before OT, shift diff and extra pays. Granted it's NY so you'll pay most back out for cost of living.  ETA.. You'll never have a hard time finding work as a medic. It's just finding work that YOU want do that makes the difference. |
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I love the ambulance, but in hindsight I should of gone into nursing. My wife became a nurse and she makes $30 an hour after 3 years. I graduated with an AAS in EMT-P and only make 17.50 an hour. It kills me because she openly states that I am more comptent in the emergency room than she is. But get paid roughly half as much. |
| They made good points.....I would go for it. You can get a job anywhere, especially in gun friendly states. I started out as a firefighter back in the 70s in maryland then went to paramedic firefighter. I got out after 14 years but I am still in EMS. I got tired of the FD halfassin EMS. There are good and bad in every disciple. In Oklahoma in the metro areas you can make $40k plus after about 2-3 years if you use the internal career steps provided. Florida should not be a problem finding a good EMS job. Just remember you won't get rich but you can live comfortable. |
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If you're going to do it, do it while you're young and single. If you want to make decent money doing it look at getting your fire certs as well. Generally speaking, private EMS is paid much less than Fire depts do, at least this is the case in my area. More and more fire depts are moving towards running EMS as well so the future will only get better as far as job opportunities go. Most depts that run EMS will hire a medic over a basic or intermediate and even over fire certs. But if you do get onto a fire dept make sure you're willing to do that aspect as well. We've had a few medics come onto my dept who decided they weren't crazy about fires and moved on. Good luck. Stay safe... |
I work for miami-dade fire rescue,9 years firefighter/paramedic im allso a driver/enginer.d/o is my bid in position.try to get hired with a fire rescue dp.you will get paid for being both a medic and a fire fighter. i make great money i wont say how much but its awsome .we work 24 hours on 48 hr off with a cr day aka kelly day evry 3 weeks. we work like 9 to 10 shifts evry month. its great. i love my job!!!!!!
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MHO? There are very few gigs that will give you longevity as a "P" in the private sector. Yes, you can get a gig with AMR or some other place that does 9-1-1 response on contract, but when the pager goes off it could be a "gomer" run or something fun. Retirement? 401k, maybe with company contribution. Job security? Nope... private sector. Piss off a Doc and you could be job hunting next week. If you truly don;t want to ride the BRT (Big Red Truck - ie fire engine) as well as the ambulance, there are a few cities where you can roll as a City "P" without getting into the fire biz (Chicago for example); this is prefereable to me because they offer better bennies, a pension and your ability to claim prior .mil service will get you points at hiring and promotion time. Consider the federal fire service (at a .mil base). It used to be that all your .mil time counted towards retirement.
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If you wanna make $$$$ go this route. My capt/medic looked into fed firefighting and I believe his starting pay would be around $70k. Not too shabby. The fed guys aren't very busy though but it certainly depends on where you're at. I believe Mechanicsburg runs mutual aid with the surrounding fire depts. They are pretty damn busy from what I hear. I have no experience other than the fire side of things but in my experience this is the way to go. You get to go to the calls, for us we generally arrive before a bus (ambulance) and we get to play and do our thing. We help package the pt for xport and we get to go back to the house. We don't do xports to higher level hospitals. Those two are the biggest reasons I value being a FF over a EMT. At 0200, after the call I get to go back to the house and go back to bed. The bus crew has to transport to the hospital, do paperwork and drive back. If it's a bad trauma with bad weather(copper can't fly), the closest Trauma Center is 45 min away. That's a min of 2 hours spent driving/paperwork. Then there's the transports to other hospitals. I've heard transports to Jacksonville FL (from Hilton Head SC)... That's 7 hours round trip. 7 freakin hours!!! Screw that. Pay is generally better also... except for the fed guys. |
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<-FF/EMT It sounds like you are pretty new to EMS. Where I work, every firefighter is an EMT, and that is the way it is most places across the country as far as I know. Most Fire departments run transport, and have guys rotate between riding the medic and the trucks/engines. Some departments run fire as first response and then have a private transport company or a separate EMS division take the patient to the hospitals. A very small number of departments still run just fire and never go on EMS calls. If you want to have a full time job as a firefighter, you better have your paramedic card unless you are working for the big city(at least in my area) It kinda sucks if you have no desire to be a firefighter, but there are very few good paramedic jobs out there where you just ride the ambulance. Oh, and get your EMT-Basic card and run for at least a year before you jump in to paramedic school. I know too many crappy paramedics because they were never compotent with thier EMT skills. |
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Some good insight. The firefighter thing never occurred to me, mostly because I was never thrilled about doing PT or passing PT-tests (or whatever they might be called outside the Army) I can't see how riding around in a big red truck with the "woo-woo" noises would be all that bad though. So... do the medics ride along for the calls and just do medic-stuff or do they cross-train to actually do fire-fighting? I'd actually rather work for a Government employer, and if I can be a government employee and make better money thats a double-win. so I'll look into the firefighter thing, which I almost nothing about except what I learned on a feild trip in elementry school. (you guys pull 24-hour shifts and take naps in these barracks-looking rooms, if I'am not mistaken) Eh well thanks. Hopefully I don't get my degree and think "fuck-shoulda-been-an-RN" |
The PT tests arent that bad. If you made it through boot camp you will be fine. HS football two a days were far worse than anything I have done for the fire service. Where I work, everyone is cross trained to do both. Infact I usually "swing" between riding the engine and driving the bus depending on the type of call we recieve. If its a structure fire, the ambulance usually stays at the house and all 4 guys ride the engine. Our engines also respond to most medical runs to provide some extra hands on scene. Most departments I know of operate with cross trained firefighter/emt's and firefighter/paramedics, though not all. You could either be doing EMS or firefighting depending on what unit you are assigned to or the nature of the calls you recieve. Firefighting is alot of fun IMO, although for obvious reasons its not for everyone. I like being able to "get both" so to speak. Although I have to admit I like riding the truck more than being stuck on the box for a shift.
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Buckeye's answer is spot-on from my experience. The days of "rescue guys" v. "fire guys" is gone in most FDs that provide EMS. As Swatrock said, in the old days the feeling towards the "box jockeys" weren't cared for in many department. Nowdays? EMS calls outnumber fire calls - even alarms - by a factor of at least 3:1 in most shops. |
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Just a heads up, but out here in Arizona a number of hospitals are utilizing paramedics in ER's. These guys probably get the most hands experience in trauma centers than Paramedics would out in the field. And Arizona has a Paramedic to RN program where you'll bypass some of the initial courses and finish your RN in about 18 months. Plus don't forget about "DPS" or "CHP" flight medics  Thoses guys usually get some good trauma calls that need air evac. And get paid very well in the process.If thats your dig, than I would give a big thumbs up and go for it. 
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A paramedic on a helicopter? That'd give me flashbacks I think. SoI got another question. When Citizen Joe calls 9-11 and reports a mess load of people requiring medical aid, does that go to the private medics that work for the hospital or does the local FD answer it? Does the local gov't ask for money for driving an injuried person to the hosptial? Because advice I took was "If you ever get hurt, call a taxi to the hospital, don't call 9-11. Because the ambulance will charge you money, while the taxi driver will thrilled to drive your bleeding self to the hosptial, for a fraction of the cost. I seen private medics in action and was not very impressed. |
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Just to give you some perspective. my wife made $40k in 2005. She worked part time as a RN. I worked more than full time as a paramedic and made $35k. The pay gap is incredible. I still love being in the back of the bus though. The pay ranges for a FF/paramedic around here vary. The ranges are from 35-55 thousand a year to start. |
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There are alot of things to consider when you read the posts on this thread. Is the area you live in a big city, suburb or rural area. In our area, the greater DC area, Fire provides EMS both ALS and BLS. Back home in small town Mass its hospital based ALS and Fire Based BLS. In some areas AMR provides the EMS First Response and transport. It is my opinion you will find the best pay, benefits and job security in a Fire Based EMS department. I have heard, and I am by no means an expert, that Private Ambulance companies, even the ones that do EMS First Response, you are a number and if you generate waves you are gone. The pay is not commensurate to your responsibilities and little or no job security. Guys working private companies please chime in if I am wrong. As for calling a cab. You can do that, Hope you dont die from blood loss. We have the ability to stop the bleeding or at least control it, start an IV to keep your BP up and if need be start front loading drugs. Thats for the injured. If your having a heart attack, sure the cabby will find it exciting as your heart dies from lack of O's and the proper meds. And sure the couple of hundred bucks your insurance has to pay is far less than the overall cost of not getting the proper care expeditiously. My 25 cents. you know inflation and the sagging economy and such |
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I've been a medic about 12 yrs now. Pros: **Fun job. Where else can you run a call where boyfriend threw his shoulder out of joint "gettin kinky" with the girlfriend, and asks you to put it back in so they can finish. No, I'm not kidding... **You can get a job just about anywhere. It might not be the job you want, but you will always be employed. **Some "expansion" possibilities--expedition medic, off shore, flight, SWAT, etc. **W/ a military background you can get into some lucrative and sometimes enjoyable work with any one of a number of contract agencies. Cons: **Unless you go a management route it's usually not a job you'll retire in. Getting up at 3 AM to carry some 350lb stinking, lazy, sorry excuse for a human down 3 flights of stairs because their foot has been hurting for 3 weeks gets old after a few years. **$$ can be a problem. I've worked my way into a $70K/yr job doing flight / management and can't really quit to take some of the "cool" opportunities that come up because I can't take a pay cut to $30K/yr. Almost all medic jobs have a lot of OT available (at least here in the S.E.) so I've never made less than about $45K/yr regardless of what the "starting salary" number was. Hell, I was making over $40K as an EMT-I... If you go the medic route, definitely get your degree. It will eventually help you out. If I had it to do over again, I'd get a BS first, then do RN and Medic, in that order. But that's just me and my particular situation... Best of luck! |
| I am a FF/medic. Private medics don't make squat for $. Having your EMT-P will almost guarantee you a spot on a Fire Dept. Don't go to a big city dept. like I did. I thought it would be so cool to work for a big city and get all the good runs. NOT! Suburbs man, suburbs. Higher pay, less nonsense. High volume big city work is fun for about 3 years. After that you realize that you get payed less then the burbs to do about 20x the work, and you have big city politics, all the time. I hope this helps. |
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Most of the jobs in SC are still third party or contracted meaning you aren't affiliated with a fire dept. It's pretty easy to make 40k especially with overtime. Personally, I generally tell folks to go into nursing then challenge the registry test if you really want to ride a bus. There are definite advantages to nursing for all the reasons listed by others. I've had some great times and met some great people, but if I had to do it again I'd do something different (I'm back in school now). JMHO YMMV |