Burned out? Want to share?

[mycrofft]

Are there aspects of the job you are beyond griping about, or have you decided the whole EMS thing is a tosser??
Did you drop out of active EMS? Why?
Do you know someone who is burning out?

 

[46Young]

I'm suprised that there hasn't been like 50 responses to the OP.

I'm not burnt, but there are things that irk me.

Agencies have 24 hour shifts, but the units run all day and night. An agency with that type of call volume has no business having shifts in excess of 16 hours. With a 24 it's understood that the crew should have some amount of downtime. At least 3-4 hours of sleep on average, uninterrupted or broken, as a minimum is a good rule of thumb. NYC places a cap on consecutive work hours at 16. Studies have shown that working in excess of 16 straight hours results in an impairment of cognitive ability not unlike being ETOH.

Lack of career advancement. There are but so many supervisory positions in EMS, and promotions more often than not are subjective, based on who management's drinking buddies are. For an EMT who does not wish to be a supervisor, there aren't many other options - promote to medic, dispatcher, CC medic, flight medic, I/C for medic school.

Lack of strong unions or EMS organizations with significant political influence. Without a union you're basically owned by the company you work for. They say jump, you had better say "How high!?!

Typically lousy retirement and pay. If I need to work two or three jobs to stay out of the poor house, I certainly can't afford to contribute to a 401k/403b. I'll need to work until I'm 90, have a massive MI, or stroke out.

Places that put you in service the literal second you arrive at the ED. You have nothing written, the pt is still on your stretcher,your ALS bag is torn up, and dispatch is sending you over the next (911) call. Repeat that four or five times in a row for most of your workdays. Recipe for instant burnout. It should be up to the crew to do the right thing if a call comes over the radio in their vicinity.

Sitting on street corners and buffing jobs is fun for a while, but I couldn't see myself doing that for 25+ years.

That's all I've got at the moment.

 

[SanDiegoEmt7]

BLS/IFT is a burnout. The plethora of medics/emts down here means that if you want to work for the one company that has emt-medic crews you only get $8.50 an hour, and if you work for a private company, like I do, you might eek by with $12.00. Both of these BARELY pay the bills in San Diego.

Combine that with the fact that IFT/BLS/Dialysis has very little job satisfaction, read: its not real medicine or healthcare. Even on the off chance I get to go to a true emergency the best treatment I have for a patient is to upgrade to ALS.

Then on top of that you add a full time school schedule, that requires a great deal of studying which I am not truly giving my time to because I have to work full time to pay my bills, as opposed to the waiting job where I made as much money as I do now working less than 20 hours a week.

RANT OVER! haha

On the other hand I have used this as a motivator to not stay stagnant and proceed with my goals to medical school.

 

[reaper]

BLS/IFT is a burnout. The plethora of medics/emts down here means that if you want to work for the one company that has emt-medic crews you only get $8.50 an hour, and if you work for a private company, like I do, you might eek by with $12.00. Both of these BARELY pay the bills in San Diego.

Combine that with the fact that IFT/BLS/Dialysis has very little job satisfaction, read: its not real medicine or healthcare. Even on the off chance I get to go to a true emergency the best treatment I have for a patient is to upgrade to ALS.

Then on top of that you add a full time school schedule, that requires a great deal of studying which I am not truly giving my time to because I have to work full time to pay my bills, as opposed to the waiting job where I made as much money as I do now working less than 20 hours a week.

RANT OVER! haha

On the other hand I have used this as a motivator to not stay stagnant and proceed with my goals to medical school.

You may want to skip med school, if you think that statement is true!

 

[SanDiegoEmt7]

You may want to skip med school, if you think that statement is true!

I don't agree. While I understand that us transporting them to their appointment is part of the their overall health care plan, we don't actually partake in any of their treatment. We don't get to help them or do anything for them, except comfort care. Obviously comfort care is a large part of any form of health care emergency or not, but if I wanted to solely do that I would have been a CNA, which by the way makes more than an EMT.

I want to be more involved in a patients treatment/care and feel like I can actually do something for them, rather than give them a ride home at 2am because the wheelchair van isn't running and with medicare we are cheaper than a taxi.

edit: after reading this, I realized how cynical this made me sound. I always do my job to the best of my ability and understand that right now my job is to get a patient from point A to B, while keeping them as comfortable as possible, chit chatting with them, etc. but I am interested in being capable of more

 

[Sasha]

I don't agree. While I understand that us transporting them to their appointment is part of the their overall health care plan, we don't actually partake in any of their treatment. We don't get to help them or do anything for them, except comfort care. Obviously comfort care is a large part of any form of health care emergency or not, but if I wanted to solely do that I would have been a CNA, which by the way makes more than an EMT.

I want to be more involved in a patients treatment/care and feel like I can actually do something for them, rather than give them a ride home at 2am because the wheelchair van isn't running and with medicare we are cheaper than a taxi.

edit: after reading this, I realized how cynical this made me sound. I always do my job to the best of my ability and understand that right now my job is to get a patient from point A to B, while keeping them as comfortable as possible, chit chatting with them, etc. but I am interested in being capable of more

You've obviously never had a "BLS" routine transport tank on you!