Honest opinion

So I just got my EMT cert and I’m going to through night school on the path the getting paramedic one certification at a time. That’s the cheapest way for me right now. I hope to make a career in EMS. My EMT instructor was awesome and you could tell he loved being a paramedic. But I get so many mixed messages. Some people I talk to absolutely hate being a paramedic and after a few years can’t wait to get any other job they can find. And some people like my instructor love it. So how many of you love it and how many of you hate it? And I’m not looking for reasons why I shouldn’t do it. I was in the army and embracing the suck and horrible hours with no sleep are all second nature to me. I’m just looking for a clue as to why So many people hate it so much. Bad agencies or bad partners or some people just end up in an overall bad area?

I feel like it's due to few reasons.
-Low pay. Not everywhere pay sucks but mostly medics are underpaid.
-No growth or room for growth.
-understaffed departments mandating overtime
-and no incentives ( 401k, retirement, PTO, etc ).

Of course this isn't every department/medic/ etc. but from ones I talked to those are the main reasons

And for some I feel like ( and for me I feel like will be main reason in 5-6 years) is scope of practice. I want to do more once I get comfortable which is why I went from EMT to now getting my medic. And probably after awhile of being a medic I'm going to want to get my PA or MD or RN.

justin1232 said:

I feel like it's due to few reasons.
-Low pay. Not everywhere pay sucks but mostly medics are underpaid.
-No growth or room for growth.
-understaffed departments mandating overtime
-and no incentives ( 401k, retirement, PTO, etc ).

Of course this isn't every department/medic/ etc. but from ones I talked to those are the main reasons

And for some I feel like ( and for me I feel like will be main reason in 5-6 years) is scope of practice. I want to do more once I get comfortable which is why I went from EMT to now getting my medic. And probably after awhile of being a medic I'm going to want to get my PA or MD or RN.

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Thank you. I hadn’t thought of a lot of that.

I think we hear more from people with strong opinions about EMS or anything else. Most of the EMTs and medics I know don't hate EMS; they see pros and cons. Accepting dissatisfiers like low pay, long hours, and physically taxing work is part of the EMS version of embracing the suck.

An even bigger factor, in my opinion, is unmet expectations. Some of us think we're signing up for adrenalin-charged days and nights of heroic work, but then we find the job is hardly ever that way. The routine can become frustrating and mind-numbing, particularly when you factor in fatigue, poor management, limited education, and changing standards of performance. I imagine that's similar to the Army.

I got into EMS as a second career. I don't think I've ever hated or loved it. I've pretty much always felt it's important. The bad stuff doesn't mean you can't get some satisfaction from the good stuff. I think you'd have to try it for yourself to find out how good a fit it is for you.

I loved working in EMS. absolutely loved it. I loved having a good partner, where we had fun, where we could walk into a chaotic scene and make things better. I came in at 6am to 7am, and left 12 hours later. I started working per diem for an urban EMS agency, and enjoyed what I did.

However, I won't lie, there were several draw backs. The BLS standard education level was a high school diploma, and it showed. the ALS standard education level was sometimes an associates, and sometimes not always that high. My agency was incredibly clique, and being in the clique didn't always correlate to being competent. The rumor mill was worse than high school, so when I took a full time position at the agency, it was substantially less enjoyable. Embracing the suck was real; what was worse is the clique people loved spreading misery, however few were willing to work on making things better. It became a vortex of suck, where people would drag it down, and club you into submission. And if you weren't in the clique, the rumor mill could affect your ability to transfer, your promotion potential, and your overall career.

You said many people hate EMS.... but you will note, they are still in it. How many hate EMS so much that they are willing to leave? or work to educate themselves so they can get out of EMS? If I hated something, I would do whatever I could to do something else. Not just complain about my job for 20 years. Do they really hate EMS, or are they trying to sound cool because all the cool kids say it sucks, so they should too?

the reasons @justin1232 gives are 100% accurate. Few people last more than 5 years in this field (I think that is the current rate). The smart ones get educated past the street paramedic level, either taking the clinical route (RN/PA/MD), or take the management route (BS, MBA/MPA, PhD), and hope that one day they can get into a position that utilizes their education.

I wouldn't trade my years on the ambulance or in the 911 center for anything. But I also haven't stepped foot on an ambulance in almost 4 years now (and I can't say that I miss it), and traded in my cot for a truck with hose and a classroom where I can teach others. Better pay, better hours, more empowerment, more potential, and my fire station has beds to sleep in at night.

Not the best pay, crap sleeping habits (this one varies a lot though), **** management, unrealistic expectations, etc.

My biggest problem right now is management. I think ours is failing with individuals being the exception. I just had a run in with a supervisor who blew something way out of proportion and context and took the conversation in a direction it never needed to go to begin with. You can guess who I'm not going to allow on my scenes for the time being....

At the end of the day I still love my job and I work with some of my most trusted friends. That doesn't change. But my outlook on where I work definitely has.

The primary, underlying reason why you see so many people so unsatisfied with their work in EMS is unrealistic or untrue expectations of what the work entails or what it will provide.

Lots of people work crappy hours, for crappy pay, and have lousy supervisors and limited advancement potential. But how many factory workers or construction site laborers putting in long days for $15/hr do you see coming on internet forums complaining about how disappointed they are in their career? In both cases, people voluntarily agree to the terms of employment knowing full well the pay rate, the hours, and at least generally what the working conditions and the work itself entails.

Yet no one complains as much as EMS folks do. I think the reason is because the root cause of the discontentment is different for EMS folks than it is for most other who are dissatisfied with their jobs.

I'm not really of fan of "loving" my job, or career. Really liking, find (self) gratifying, rewarding, etc.? Sure, but typically I think that individual outlook has kept some of the long-term providers in it longer than perhaps even they had imagined. I don't think it's typical, but it certainly helps; it's helped me.

With that, no longer having to be on an ambulance full-time as a provider has more than doubled the length of my desire to make this my career. Having the opportunity to educate myself beyond the standard EMT and paramedic DOT curriculum has helped as well.

Also, keep in mind that typically most of the people in this field that hate their jobs are the same ones who once loved it. I've said it before on here and will say it again to you: never love anything that will not love you back.

I, like most people who go into EMS, didn't really have a great understanding of what I was getting into.

My assumptions were that I would be running call to call with really sick patients, but EMS is far more monotonous than that. I didn't expect to spend the majority of my shifts cleaning bathrooms, washing trucks, giving station tours, and watching fire engineering videos that provided little educational value but for some reason our lieutenant loved. These things didn't really bother me all that much, the reality is that most jobs have a large degree of underwhelming drone work.

I also was told repeatedly how my paramedic would get me onto a large fire department, where I would actually make a living wage unlike the small department I was on. After testing for many departments all over the state it became quickly apparent that there was a very large degree of luck involved in getting through testing, let alone getting through interviews. The fact that my fate was being determined by an hypothetical argument in the station over how we bought a bottle of ketchup (in reality is typically whatever is cheapest and nobody actually cares) or whether or not to ticket some small business owner because their extinguisher is a couple months out of date (which is something very few engine officers do in various departments, let along the new hire) eventually drove me nuts and lead me to look for other career options. The rat race for those who want to fly or have some other dream job in EMS is typically just as fustrating and hard to get too.

I looked at med school but spending a year or so taking my MCAT, four years in graduate school, about four years in residency, and likely another two or three in fellowship really didn't appeal to me. I considered PA but the job options can be limited depending on the region and state laws.

I ended up going to nursing school, and it was a great decision for me. I have worked level I trauma in the past and now work in a referral hospital. I make about three times what I did on he fire department, and have far more independence in my practice; I also get to take care of patients in ways most field providers can't whether it be from patients on ECMO, placing invasive lines, adjusting ventilatory managment and more (and most of this thankfully due to the great medical team at our center that trusts the critical care nursing staff immensely). I think that eventually I want to do CRNA but almost certainly advanced practice of some kind, but if I stay in the ED and critical care for the rest of my career I'd be satisfied with that too.

I don't hate EMS, I still do some field stuff from time to time and do a lot with our outreach and education programs but I wouldn't go back full or even part time. Working with limited resources in the field and with great EMS colleuges did help to make me a much better clinician and I wouldn't take back the time I spent on the department.

First off, thank you for your service! My son in law jumps out of airplanes currently and has spent many months in the sandboxes around the world. You armed forces folks are AWESOME!!!

EMS is a great profession to enter. It's not all good but much of it is. I would encourage you to go to publicsafetytesting.com and search for firefighter jobs. Most of the work we do in the fire service is EMS related. There are some good third service and hospital based EMS systems out there too (if you don't want to be a firefighter) but the best places to work are typically going to be fire based. There will be much debate from many folks here on this topic. There are incredible EMT's and Paramedics working at Private Ambulance but the companies themselves are for the most part terrible employers that only care about $$$ and not their employees. There are some good ones I'm sure but the BIG ambulance companies are soul sucking monsters and I know of what I speak having spent the first 15 years of my EMS career working in the private ambulance sector.

I know in Washington State that we will see close to 50% of our current work force eligible to retire in the next 3-5 years and we will be hiring hundreds of firefighters during that time.