NE to CA. Californiaians help please

In the process of finishing EMT classes and will be taking NREMT exam soon. Currently living in Nebraska and on 2 volunteer departments. Family will be moving to California in the next year and would love to find a full time job as an EMT in the Orange County area. Unrealistic goal??? Seems like there are a lot more licenses and so on required in California. Any advice anyone has would be greatly appreciated, especially if you’ve come from another state to CA. Thanks

There's dozens of private ambulance companies in Orange County and nearby areas. However pay is low, roughly in the $10-15/hr range. The vast majority of companies do only non emergency interfacility transport (taking people to and from dialysis appointments, discharges from the hospital to nursing home, from nursing home to doctors office for appointment, hospital to different hospital because of insurance reasons (*cough Kaiser *cough cough*)). Only a couple of those companies do any 911 response, and those companies still do IFTs.

Care Ambulance, and Emergency Ambulance Service (EAS) have 911 response contracts in OC (there's a couple others who have small contracts for an individual city, but those are typically a 1 or 2 station for the 911 area whole the rest of the operation runs around doing IFT)....but both Los Angeles and Orange Counties, all 911 response is run by the Fire department. Private companies are contracted through the FDs to provide BLS transport, and on scene the Fire Medics (or even the non medic Fire Captain) has full authority and the private EMTs have little scene control and basically get told what to do by said fire medics on all 911 calls.

If you are willing to commute to Riverside or San Bernardino Counties, AMR is the 911 transport provider there. Although the FDs are still ALS there, unlike LA/OC, AMR is the ALS transport. (They'll be staffed 1 and 1 medic and EMT) and are in charge of patient care, supposed to be at least. There's plenty of AMR employees from those areas that can expand upon the actual working relationship with fire in their areas (or lack thereof)

Jim37F said:

Riverside

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AMR-Palm Springs division: Great to work for, decent relationships with fire, good variety of calls and demographics, summers suck but winters are nice.
AMR-Hemet division: Another great division to work for, really busy, variety of calls and demographics, milder weather but still hot in the summer.
AMR-Riverside division: Its the only union division in REMS so whatever... busy division, variety of calls, mild weather still hot in the summer.

Jim37F said:

San Bernardino

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AMR-Redlands division: Busy and thats all I know. SBCoFD sucks according to my fellow classmates in my medic class.
AMR-Rancho division: Same as above.
AMR-Victorville: Same as above
SBCoFD AO- Busy and apparently a lot of forced overtime and thats pretty much all I know.

Riverside county is a good county to work in if you can support the commute on a AMR wage. OC and LACo I would stay away from.

Like others said, you probably won't be making a lot of money and it will probably be interfacility only as well.

Aprz said:

Like others said, you probably won't be making a lot of money and it will probably be interfacility only as well.

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You should also know that EMS in the SoCal area, especially in OC and LA, is notoriously bad. You won't be working for a fire department anytime soon, and if you do get a job at a 911 company, the firefighters will treat you like garbage. Don't expect to enjoy yourself as an EMT there.

Pretty much all of the above sums up the totally non professional situation in Southern California.
The question you should ask yourself is what is your goal with becoming an EMT. I have to say that I see a lot of people becoming EMTs who are not well suited to the job.
If you want to become a medic stay away from California and find a state that is EMS progressive.
If you want to just go to California and hang out and make 12 bucks an hour and live with your parents and maybe go to college and get a degree and a solid career then thats another story.
You could drive an ambulance( that’s about all EMTs do in so cal) and make some money for gas and such.
You could never ever live in SoCal on 15.00 an hour
Its sad that instead of exposing the bull for being a bull, EMTs in Southern California should form a union and stick tight like the fire service who treats them like garbage and up the ante and protect their job by making radical changes to EMS
The EMT CERT is woefully outdated and needs to ba changed.
Fighting the fire service unions who lobby in Sacramento to keep the status quo of crappy ALS care is not going happen unless you guys stand up.
I would say let the fire service have all the work or none. Not just what they want
private EMS is on its last legs and won’t survive the next Wall Street Crash.. so we will see
Moving to Southern California to pursue EMS is like saying you are going to India to pursue yoga
Everyone and his brother is a yoga teacher in India and everyone and his brother is and EMT in California.
You will need a drivers license.
You will pay about 150.00 bucks with the background check and you WILL TAKE AND PASS an additional DMV test for the Ambulance Drivers License OR U WONT GET HIRED. ( the test which is from the 60s before EMT EXISTED and by the way... fire service is exempt).
Then you will have to be flexiabe and like driving at least an hour to work and back because the traffic never ever ends.
You will have your answer when u ask yourself what you want from life
But you will never be a long term resident of California on an EMT job
You might not even qualify for Apartment
But if you want to catch some rays and go to college and work as an EMT if you have time.....then go for it
If you want to be an EMS pro.
Stay far away for now.