1.  Haul Mrs Greenberg to the dialysis center

2.  Code 2 with the old person from the ER after her slip/fall

3.  Back to Mrs Greenberg

4.  Hey, another Code 2 from the ER with another Senior with dementia and a full diaper, back to the con home.  The weird thing is that I can tell that 60 years ago she was a total hottie, and that thought is kind of turning me on in this weird way.  Look in her eyes and tell me that beneath that white film isn't a sultry film goddess.

5.  Mrs Greenberg?  You ready to go to dialysis?

This is fascinating.  Seriously, guys, I'm ready to pimp Enron again for Wall Street.  This is killing me.  Its been a whopping three weeks and I can tell that doing this taxi route is not for me.  My EMT instructor suggested a phlebotomy course for me, it'd be good prep for nursing school.

I'm very seriously considering pulling night shifts and going to paramedic school so I can do something (anything) more interesting than this.

Hello?  Mrs Greenberg?  Ready to go to dialysis again today?  Oh, your little blind dog is yapping away again, should I leave the door open a crack?  How'd your daughter's audition go today, good?  Great.  That's great.  One, two, three...

Dispatch, this is  103, we're 10-7 on Orange.

103, copy.

Dispatch, this is 103, we're code 6 at Blahblahblah Renal Care.

103, copy.

Dispatch, this is 103, we're 10-98 at Blahblahblah Renal Care.

103, copy.

Dispatch, this is 103, I'm hanging myself in the back of the rig.

103, copy.

103 you have a pickup, Mrs Greenberg at Blahblahblah Renal Care, heading back to Orange.

Dispatch, copy.

Sounds like you do private ambulace service?  Or do ya'll service the area for 911 emergancy calls aswell?

In this county .......Paramedic or not, you get that same shit day in, day out.  Glad our dept doesnt do transports, so no ambulance action here.  We are  "first responders"  regardless of level of care held by the crew members of the arriving apparatus.  All supression personnel are Basic EMTs or higher.

Wish I could tell you it gets better.

I'll take a guess here. You just got you B license and were all excited because you learned all these great life-saving methods in class, now you're doing BLS transports.
Unfortunately, this is the meat and potatoes of EMS life. Look at the postings by police officers here. Are all their calls double homicides or hostage situations? Use the BLS transports to refine your patient assesment skills. If you can take a blood pressure at 70 mph, do a full head to toe, lung sounds, etc. with granny, you'll be that much better at it when you have a major trauma or unconcious unknown.
If you want real action, find the worst neighborhood around and ask to work there. Aside from the traumas, low income areas are generally full of people who have no money for preventative medicine or who cannot drive themselves to the hospital, hence far more action. I do recommend your skills are in good shape before going to such a neighborhood. They will be put to the test.

If you have more questions, let me know.

Quoted: I'll take a guess here. You just got you B license and were all excited because you learned all these great life-saving methods in class, now you're doing BLS transports. Unfortunately, this is the meat and potatoes of EMS life. Look at the postings by police officers here. Are all their calls double homicides or hostage situations? Use the BLS transports to refine your patient assesment skills. If you can take a blood pressure at 70 mph, do a full head to toe, lung sounds, etc. with granny, you'll be that much better at it when you have a major trauma or unconcious unknown. If you want real action, find the worst neighborhood around and ask to work there. Aside from the traumas, low income areas are generally full of people who have no money for preventative medicine or who cannot drive themselves to the hospital, hence far more action. I do recommend your skills are in good shape before going to such a neighborhood. They will be put to the test. If you have more questions, let me know.

There's an ambulance company that operates out of Inglewood, so that's a possibility.  Supposedly they have more interesting calls.  They don't do 24's though, so I'd be stuck pretty much hauling Mrs Greenberg to the dialysis center anyway, and probably working 7 days a week to make my 70 hours.  AMR has all the fire calls.  Even if you work for AMR, the fire department does all the rescue work.  They take a bloody mess and wrap it up on your gurney and have you haul it to the ER, where you hand off the pt, and then spend a couple hours hosing out the back of your rig.

Apparently, it's a whole different world on the east coast.  They let EMT's do something.

For the moment, I am going to stay where I am.  I need the money, and these guys will let me do three 24's a week so I can keep a roof over my head at least.

Doing a BP at 70 is tough, but I can get pretty close.  As soon as I got my ambulance driver's card they switched me to driving all the time, but I'm going to try to get back to attending just to get better at taking vitals.  Pay's the same, so why not train to do what I want to do.  It's not like I really care what the fastest route is from Hancock Park Convalescent Home to Intensive Renal Care... I'd rather at least practice taking vitals and whatnot.

I'm not sure I have any questions, it's more a matter of being mildly disappointed and realizing that I'm going to have to deal with this for another year and a half before nursing school starts.

My old EMT teacher suggested I take a phlebotomy course and get my cert, and at least draw blood for a living.  That sounds a little better.  I can freelance as a phlebotomist and triple my hourly rate... why not.  I can still pull a 24 once or twice a week if I still want to.

Ahhh, the wonderful world of private EMS... AKA "Red and White Taxi Service - You Call, We Haul..."

The best "compromise" as a private is to get a gig with a company that handles the xports for the municipality. Unfortunately, those gigs are pretty rare, and most private 911 responders still wind up haulin' Mrs. Schmedlap to and 'fro in between the gory sea story type calls.

Welcome to the brotherhood, Peak.

Not all private EMS is boring. I work for a private service attached to a local hospital and we do rescue stuff as well. Granted, we don't have turnout gear or cutters/spreaders, but we do SAR, HAZMAT decon, low angle/tough terrain rescue, ice rescue, tactical EMS support, and we have a dive team. On the whole, we can do more than the average volunteer fire dept. we work with, but we're somewhat unique in that sense.
Believe me, we all started out doing most of the driving. It's the bottom rung of EMS but as my boss put it, probably the most important. EMS's primary job is to get the patient to the hospital, which means good driving is critical. Get stuck in traffic or worse, crash the unit, and bad things may happen. Once your coworkers get more comfortable with you, they'll let you do more.
There are a number of ways to get to play more. First, join a volunteer fire dept. if you can. Many will take you off the street and train you. Some may even give you a small stipend for uniform costs and on-call time.
Next, get your I or P license. It's a lot of work, but you learn a lot and really get to do some neat things. Once you're a medic, you can join a professional fire dept. as a FF/Medic and really get to work some interesting calls.
You can also work in a hospital as an ER tech. You'll develop some great assesment skills very fast, which are at the heart of any good EMT's routine. You may also be able to start IVs, give nebs, etc.

Working in the ER as a tech, phlebotomist, whatever, is the best way to get accustomed to nursing. Patient assesments, vitals, and labs are at the heart of emergency medicine. Once you figure out what's wrong, the rest is pretty routine.  Even (many) doctors have protocols and guidelines.

If you're really that disappointed with your job, talk to your supervisor. If he doesn't give you the right answers, start looking for a different service to run with.

Move- there are lots of places out there that are shorthanded and would like to have you.  That said, when folks ask me about going into EMS I usually tell them to get their nursing degree instead- better pay, better hours, better working conditions, more room for advancement, larger variety of jobs, etc.  You can always take the paramedic class later and get on with a flight crew or do ride alongs if you crave the "excitement".  Even working 911 has slow days and a ton of BS- possibly more considering how political it can be.    Yeah, I'm back in school now.

You can always take a medic/RN bridge program too. They're usually about a year and most medics who took the NREMT '99 curriculum have no trouble with it. RN = medic + labs + more meds (mainly antibiotics), but with less focus on working independently and scene management. That's why most RN programs take just as long as medic programs, it's just a slightly different focus.

Thanks for the replies.  I'm definitely going to nursing school, I'm on a waiting list at a very nice school in fall of 07 so that's just around the corner for me.  I plan on driving the rig for another couple of months while I finish up the three classes I'm taking right now, and do the phlebotomy course this summer.  Then I'll have the opportunity to make some money as well as get some experience.

I do have to say I'm a little disappointed with the place I'm working right now.  We have a troublesome management team.  The field supervisor appears to have a lot of family problems he brings to work with him, and in addition to that his abrasive personality seems to wear on some good people and they tend to leave.  The office manager appears to have gone womanpsycho and has been blowing up at people and then apologizing for her behavior... daily if not more often.  I didn't care much for this kind of thing from my family, I sure don't expect to be treated this way in the workplace.  I figure I'll just post at the hospital as much as possible and not worry about what's going on at the office.

I like the patient care, the new things that pop up every day, the people that work in the hospitals (if not the con homes), so it's been overall a worthwhile investment of time.  I didn't really consider working in emergency medicine before this experience but it looks like a better time than counting out pills for Mrs Greenberg.