Advice for a newbie?

[StarOfLife]

I'm new, but I have read most of the threads of interest to me on here. It is a great site.

So, I am a relatively new EMT-B and have been volunteering for my local rescue squad (very slow) while working at a ski area in base first aid (to get some experience with patients). I am interested ultimately in working for an ambulance service. We have two private services in our valley. The municipal fire/rescue/ems services are not an option because I would have to quit my rescue.

I am riding with the service for which I am greatly interested in working this Wednesday. Any advice? Our rescue does not transport (about once a year) so it is a brave new world!! I am so excited and am looking forward to the learning experience.

Good to "meet" you all. Thanks for anything you care to offer.

 

[StarOfLife]

Woopsie.

My grammar left something to be desired toward the end of my post. Edit: I am riding this Wednesday for the service in which I am interested. That should be clearer.

P.S. Can you edit posts? I didn't see where I could when I re-read it and saw my error.

 

[ffemt8978]

You can edit your posts, but you have a 15 minute time limit to do so. To edit the post, look in the lower right corner of the post next to where it says "Quote". To the left of that should be a button labeled "Edit" if it is within the time limit.

 

[reaper]

Star,

You need to decide if you want to work EMS as a career or a hobby? If you are looking at a career, then don't worry that you can't volunteer for rescue if you work full time.

If you are just in it for a hobby, then stay with the rescue squad and leave the full time job for someone that wants the career.

Volunteering is fine, but you don't want to work for free if you are looking at a career. You have to make that decision.

 

[StarOfLife]

Star,

You need to decide if you want to work EMS as a career or a hobby? If you are looking at a career, then don't worry that you can't volunteer for rescue if you work full time.

If you are just in it for a hobby, then stay with the rescue squad and leave the full time job for someone that wants the career.

Volunteering is fine, but you don't want to work for free if you are looking at a career. You have to make that decision.

I'm sorry - I didn't really explain my position well. I do have other options. I want to work for one of our private ambulance services. I can still be a volunteer for my town when I am not working.

It is the municipal EMS jobs that will not allow me to volunteer for another town so I am ruling them out. I do know I can get hired with at least one, if not both of these private services if I desire. They are vocal about their desperation for help. I know some of the people who work for them and they enjoy working for their service, but there is a shortage of people who desire EMS as a career up here. A lot just volunteer and keep other jobs.

I am committed to a career in EMS. And I definitely will be pursuing it, however, it is important to me to give something to my community. So, I do not want to give up the rescue to work for a municipal agency - especially when I have other options.

Also, I love rescue work. We are first responders, usually, and we play an important role in the pre-hospital chain here.

Thanks for the responses.

 

[StarOfLife]

So, if anyone can give me some pointers on my ride out that would be fabulous! I am really excited and I figured I would ask the EMTs what they expect my role to be - observation or if they want me to play an active role and if so, should I be proactive or simply do what I am told.

What do you guys/gals usually expect?

 

[Ridryder911]

I'm sorry - I didn't really explain my position well. I do have other options. I want to work for one of our private ambulance services. I can still be a volunteer for my town when I am not working.

It is the municipal EMS jobs that will not allow me to volunteer for another town so I am ruling them out. I do know I can get hired with at least one, if not both of these private services if I desire. They are vocal about their desperation for help. I know some of the people who work for them and they enjoy working for their service, but there is a shortage of people who desire EMS as a career up here. A lot just volunteer and keep other jobs.

I am committed to a career in EMS. And I definitely will be pursuing it, however, it is important to me to give something to my community. So, I do not want to give up the rescue to work for a municipal agency - especially when I have other options.

Also, I love rescue work. We are first responders, usually, and we play an important role in the pre-hospital chain here.

Thanks for the responses.

Can't have your cake and eat it too. There is a reason some companies do not want you to volunteer. Everyone needs a break from EMS, as well they may consider it competition.

If you really want to give something back to your community, volunteer as a "big brother", pick up trash, meals on wheels, there is a thousand other things to do. Please don't prevent professional EMS from being considered. As long as there is free milk, no one will buy the cow.

R/r 911

 

[reaper]

I am glad that you are one that wants a career in EMS, many don't. It is nice that you want to give back to your community. As you advance in your EMS career, you will see that volunteering is what hurts the profession. Why would communities want to have a paid service, when they have people willing to do it for free?

You will hear people say " my community can't afford a paid service", That is a big lie! If all the volunteers quit tomorrow, do you think that the community would go without coverage? NO, the politicians would find the money to have a paid service.

Whether it is paying more taxes or cutting budgets elsewhere, they would find it. The community is better served by someone who's job is solely EMS, then by someone that has to leave a paying job to respond.

I do not want to make this a volley vs paid thread, but you need to understand this, before you get to involved in a career.

People bring up volley fd's that have been around for years and work fine. That is not the same. FD's may only run on 2-10 real fire calls a week, EMS can run on 10-1000 real medical calls in a week. A majority of fire calls are just to save a structure or property. Ems is dealing with lives, not replaceable property.

If you want to volunteer, then do it at a FD, not EMS.

Sorry for the rant, just trying to educate some of the problems!

 

[BossyCow]

Star
You may find that the combination of volly and paid may dampen your enthusiasm for helping on the volly squads. It can be difficult to get up after working a shift dealing with a professional team to go work side by side with the unexperienced on a train wreck call. I work with a volly fire/ems system and I've seen it happen with a lot of volunteers over the years who go to work for a paid system.

Also, those munincipal systems may have a liability issue set by their insurer that will not allow their employees to work outside of their control. Risk management is real important in today's society.

To address reapers comments, the scenario he described happened to an agency near here and they did lose their EMS completely. In rural areas not covered by a municipality, there is no structure to pay for the services those in more urban areas take for granted. There are areas of the country, in our state known as 'unincorporated county'. They have no system of government and no infrastructure that can collect taxes. The fire department is set up as a 'junior taxing district' and is able to collect a limited amount as an assessment on the property taxes. The department I refer to that lost their EMS tried to pass a levy to improve and expand their system. They lost the levy and ended up dropping their EMS. We have state set limits on what we can and cannot charge and how much we can raise our rates in any given year.

Luckily or unluckily, depending on your point of view, in this particular area of the world, there is no expectation that if something bad happens to you that some external system is going to swoop in and make everything okay. These people are extraordinarily self reliant and will not pay for something they believe they can do themselves, like drive their buddy to the ER "Toss him in the back of the truck Earl!"

 

[reaper]

Bossy,

It does happen as you said. But, that is why I stated communities. I have lived just as rural as you do. Out in the sticks, neighbors help neighbors. That's how it has always been. I was referring to set up rural towns, that do have a setup tax base.

Everyone cries about more taxes, but then moans went the services aren't there when they need them. When you live in a civilized society you have to pay for the services you would expect.

If the state doesn't allow for a millage rate for EMS, then it is time to change the state laws. We all as citizens have the right and duty to fight for our rights and our survival. No matter where you live, you still pay property taxes to some form of government. That is the government that you need to go after for the funding.

 

[BossyCow]

We are dealing in our state with the equivalant of California's Prop 13. There was a cap placed on the amount of tax any agency can add in a year. We are limited to a 1% increase per year. Aside from that, it needs to be a levy and like I said, our citizenry would rather die than pay for a levy... and some of them do.

 

[StarOfLife]

I am glad that you are one that wants a career in EMS, many don't. It is nice that you want to give back to your community. As you advance in your EMS career, you will see that volunteering is what hurts the profession. Why would communities want to have a paid service, when they have people willing to do it for free?

You will hear people say " my community can't afford a paid service", That is a big lie! If all the volunteers quit tomorrow, do you think that the community would go without coverage? NO, the politicians would find the money to have a paid service.

Whether it is paying more taxes or cutting budgets elsewhere, they would find it. The community is better served by someone who's job is solely EMS, then by someone that has to leave a paying job to respond.

I do not want to make this a volley vs paid thread, but you need to understand this, before you get to involved in a career.

People bring up volley fd's that have been around for years and work fine. That is not the same. FD's may only run on 2-10 real fire calls a week, EMS can run on 10-1000 real medical calls in a week. A majority of fire calls are just to save a structure or property. Ems is dealing with lives, not replaceable property.

If you want to volunteer, then do it at a FD, not EMS.

Sorry for the rant, just trying to educate some of the problems!

There seems to be a misunderstanding. I work on a volunteer fire/rescue. My town sees 200ish fire/rescue calls per year. We have 6 EMTs and everyone has other careers/jobs with no desire to work as full-time EMTs. I personally wouldn't want to hire paid personnel with that volume. I also do not want to volunteer to pick up trash in lieu of working MVAs. Like I said, I like rescue - I enjoy the first responder aspect of it.

Also, we contract a private ambulance service for transports. It is one of the companies I am considering.

And neither of the services I am considering minds their employees volunteering. In fact, most of the personnel on both services are either volunteer FFs or EMTs (or both) for their respective towns. There are only two of eight towns in this valley that have paid personnel because they have the call volume. We are a rural area.

However, that really wasn't the crux of my post. I was just providing background information about myself. I just wanted to know what to expect on my ride out but I guess I'll just see in the morning. Thanks anyway.

 

[StarOfLife]

Can't have your cake and eat it too. There is a reason some companies do not want you to volunteer. Everyone needs a break from EMS, as well they may consider it competition.

R/r 911

There is no competition. The private services respond along with the volunteers. There is a huge shortage of manpower. They do not mind volunteering at all.

I said that the municipal FD in the next town (part paid/part volunteer) doesn't want it. It is in the town's by-laws so there is no conflict. I'd have to move there as well.

 

[StarOfLife]

Hmmm.....

After thinking about this for a bit:

Are you guys suggesting that a rural town pay someone to man a station 24 hours a day, seven days per week in the event that 2.5 calls per week may come in? And how many people should be there to respond? How will that ensure "full-time" EMS work? How does that give one a greater level of experience? Why should the town want to pay for such a thing?

No one complains about the response time here for fire or EMS. We had a chimney fire here at 3:30 the other morning. It took us forever to get there. It was on the outskirts of town down winding town gravel roads, then down an unmaintained, snow-covered class 6 road, then 1/2 mile down a private unmaintained road. No apparatus could reach it. We jumped in the back of a few 4x4 trucks with gear and dry chem and hoped for the best. The homeowner (who leaves his home about once a month) was grateful and thankfully the fire was not too bad. We used buckets of water and dry chemical to extinguish the fire. He was grateful - not upset that it wasn't a "better" service.

And the private ambulance service that our town contracts had a couple of FFs working shift that night so they provided manpower. It is a great little community and I am proud to serve it.

 

[el Murpharino]

I was kind of in the same boat about 6 years ago. I work for a private ambulance company that does about 10,000 calls/year, but when I'm home I volunteer at the local FD and ambulance squad (the FD averages about 350 calls/year, the ambulance squad gets about 700 calls/year). I'll volunteer at the ambulance squad a few shifts per week, and I'll help out at the fire dept. when I have the time. Early on in my career, I spent almost all my time doing either the paid gig, or volunteering...I could see I was getting increasingly irritable and borderline burnt out. I had to work out a better balance, and it seemed to do the trick.

Fire/Rescue and EMS are two different balls of wax...at times intertwined, but different overall. Yeah, you may not get too many calls volunteering, but it's fun. I enjoy it, and if you enjoy it as well you shouldn't be discouraged from doing both EMS and rescue. It's a delicate balance, so be sure to make some time for yourself outside of EMS and rescue...or you could run the risk of getting burnt out as well. If you want to work at the private company...I say go for it. It's definitely a faster-paced system, and may seem overwhelming at first, but you'll adapt to it if you truly enjoy it. This is one of those professions that if you don't enjoy it, you shouldn't be in it. Patient care ultimately suffers from lackluster and burnt out providers...don't be that person.

 

[StarOfLife]

I was kind of in the same boat about 6 years ago. I work for a private ambulance company that does about 10,000 calls/year, but when I'm home I volunteer at the local FD and ambulance squad (the FD averages about 350 calls/year, the ambulance squad gets about 700 calls/year). I'll volunteer at the ambulance squad a few shifts per week, and I'll help out at the fire dept. when I have the time. Early on in my career, I spent almost all my time doing either the paid gig, or volunteering...I could see I was getting increasingly irritable and borderline burnt out. I had to work out a better balance, and it seemed to do the trick.

Fire/Rescue and EMS are two different balls of wax...at times intertwined, but different overall. Yeah, you may not get too many calls volunteering, but it's fun. I enjoy it, and if you enjoy it as well you shouldn't be discouraged from doing both EMS and rescue. It's a delicate balance, so be sure to make some time for yourself outside of EMS and rescue...or you could run the risk of getting burnt out as well. If you want to work at the private company...I say go for it. It's definitely a faster-paced system, and may seem overwhelming at first, but you'll adapt to it if you truly enjoy it. This is one of those professions that if you don't enjoy it, you shouldn't be in it. Patient care ultimately suffers from lackluster and burnt out providers...don't be that person.

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I am not really that worried about it, however. I figure that if I get "burnt", I am not locked into anything. I have freewill and will cut back if I need to, where I need to. I'm very excited to get going and to continue learning.

I do love rescue and I am interested in an ambulance career. I think they complement each other and look forward to my future in EMS. I had a good ride with a knowledgeable crew yesterday and I will be riding again next week some time - they told me to come back any time and to just call to set it up. I'd like something busier, if they are willing to accomodate that - I'm sure if it is a real busy shift, I'd only get in the way, but I'll see what they can do.

The medic was happy to show me what he could considering it was quite slow - only one 911 and a transport (4 hrs.). So at least we all got to talk about the business, schooling and (ugghhh) POLITICS. I really bit my tongue there. Yikes.

Anyway, thanks again and I'll post when I have my next ride.

 

[cfrench]

There are many Depts and Third service agencies in New Hampster. You could stay with your Vol dept and work for AMR or Rockingham easy enough. When you get your medic ticket there is Frisbie Hospital. If you dont mind being a FF there are then many more options obviously (Dover is a nice place for instance). Get all the experience you can as a basic no matter what you decide.

 

[StarOfLife]

There are many Depts and Third service agencies in New Hampster. You could stay with your Vol dept and work for AMR or Rockingham easy enough. When you get your medic ticket there is Frisbie Hospital. If you dont mind being a FF there are then many more options obviously (Dover is a nice place for instance). Get all the experience you can as a basic no matter what you decide.

Thanks, cfrench. Unfortunately, I am in Carroll County and there is no AMR. We have two services in the immediate area and another about 45 minutes from me. I think I can get a job, however with one of the two. I am calling the one I rode with and the other one in the a.m. The one I haven't yet rode with is much busier, but the working conditions and equipment are rumored to be less desirable. I will ride with them, anyway to see what I think and to get a lot of different experiences in in a couple of ride alongs.

I am actually quite confident I'll be hired, I'm just nervous about my lack of experience. I want to be an asset, not a liability and I want to make sure I have a little bit of familiarity with the rigs and their setups before I am hired.

Our rescue is set up far differently than the ambulance I rode with. I want to learn how to set up IVs for the medics, how to get good BPs in a moving ambulance, how to get a good pulse in a moving ambulance, how to STAND when necessary in a moving ambulance . I would love to become familiar with properly attaching a 12 lead to a patient - basically learning how to assist and perform my responsibilities adequately under real circumstances.

 

[StarOfLife]

cfrench, I just noticed you are in Maine. My ride along the other day consisted primarily of a transport to Maine Med. Four hours round trip. Ughhh... Fine for employment, but not for a learning experience. I need a good shift.

 

[cfrench]

If you are thinking career, many places do 24's. You can live a long distance away and commute twice a week for 24 hour shifts. We had one of our guys at my fulltime gig (Sanford, Maine fire) who lived in Conway. He was 10 minutes from Cathedral ledge and 1.5 hours from work. I thought he had his priorities straight

You could get in at AMR Somersworth and commute. I know there one or two mom and pop companies in the lakes region. Someone from Acton Rescue works for one of them (dunno the name). Did you ride with Conway Ambulance? Carroll County is pretty big, what part are you in?