General questions about becoming an EMT-B.

[Echo259]

Firstly, I want to thank the members of this forum for making this site the great resource it is. Now, on to my questions. I will be returning to college in the fall of this year for mechanical engineering. My current job is really not suited to school due to its variable scheduling and minimum wage pay. It was suggested to me that I should consider working as an EMT. Before I changed my major to engineering I was going to go pre-med so I felt that this would be an excellent solution. However, in my experience, things that sound good are often far more difficult than they seem. I was told that I basically take and pass a 12 week course at my community college and pass my certification tests and then apply for a job. I'm confident I can pass both the course and the examinations when the time comes but I am not certain if this is all I need do or if I will even be able to find a job after doing so.

My questions are:
-what kind of shifts do EMT-B's work?
-what kind of pay do EMT-B's receive?
-how much schooling is required to become an EMT-B?
-how easy is it to find a job as an EMT-?

A few details, I Live in Spokane,WA. I would work for AMR most likely since that appears to be the company that services this area. I apologize for the vagueness of this post and the clear ignorance, I'm really new to the whole topic.

 

[Aprz]

what kind of shifts do EMT-B's work?

I think EMTs generally work 12 hour shifts, but I think a lot of companies offer shorter hours like 8 and 10 hours too. Some places do 24 hour shifts too, but I think those are slowly going away.

what kind of pay do EMT-B's receive?

In most areas, minimum wage or slightly higher. A lot of people want to be super heroes and the training is minimal.

People might tell you about places that do pay decently or tell you about fire departments, who generally do pay way better, but they are severely hard to get on to.

how much schooling is required to become an EMT-B?

It's usually very little. For example, people can get their EMT in two weeks at Unitek College in Fremont, CA. Generally I would say it is around three to four months for most people.

how easy is it to find a job as an EMT-?

It's usually very hard because so many people want to do it. I think it takes most people a couple of months. It took me 13 months to get my first EMT job for $9.50/hour.

Another thing that people don't learn until they get a job as an EMT is a lot of places either don't do 911 or doesn't do a lot of 911. You'll probably do non emergency interfacility transports (IFT). A common example is taking somebody from a convalescent home to a dialysis center. It is usually very uneventful and burns people out after several months. To get some 911 experience, I think most people either do unpaid volunteer 911 in rural areas or their company does a combination of interfacility transports and 911. In my area, 911 and interfacility transports are totally separate and 911 feels like it is almost impossible to get on. I think most people quit IFT after a couple of months. For the few that remain, I think it takes most people about 1-2 years to get on with a 911 in my area. It took me about 4 years unfortunately.

Maybe somebody in Washington can give you some more specific details? Some areas are better than others and maybe Washington is one of those places, however, what I said is probably true for most of the nation.

 

[Ewok Jerky]

My questions are:
-what kind of shifts do EMT-B's work?
-what kind of pay do EMT-B's receive?
-how much schooling is required to become an EMT-B?
-how easy is it to find a job as an EMT-?

A few details, I Live in Spokane,WA. I would work for AMR most likely since that appears to be the company that services this area. I apologize for the vagueness of this post and the clear ignorance, I'm really new to the whole topic.

Answers to your questions are hugely dependent on your specific area so hopefully someone will chime in. If not, swallow your pride and head down to the ED and see what names are the sides of ambulances that come and go, then look up where those companies are located and go in and talk to a manager.

-what kind of shifts do EMT-B's work?
8s, 10s, 12s, 14s, 24s

-what kind of pay do EMT-B's receive?
mostly minimum wage or slightly above. Overtime usually comes after 40 hours for the week.

-how much schooling is required to become an EMT-B?
one semester 2-3 times a week

-how easy is it to find a job as an EMT-?
area dependent

 

[Nlaw253]

So I am speaking from my experience at AMR Seattle in my answers, it may be a little different in Spokane

What kind of shifts?
We have 8 hour and 12 hour shifts. Full time is normally on a Spokane style schedule (2 on, 2 off, 3 on and then it flips the next week). There are also 3/4 splits. Part time is pretty much pick an open shift.

Pay?
We start at 14.00, but for most places in WA it's like 9.50 - 13.00

School?
10 weeks was how long my program was

Finding a job?
It's not too hard to find a private ambulance job in WA. It helps to be sponsored by an agency first because that is a requirement for getting your state EMT here. Normally you can volunteer with a fire department to get sponsored. But with going to school and working it might be tough to find the time to volunteer as well.

Shoot me a PM if there is anything else I can help you out with


Best of luck!

 

[JosephDurham]

In Ohio, emts typically have jobs in the ED as techs but again, area dependent. Planning on running squad, here in Ohio you won't be able to until you have at least your Fire 1, and then it would only be a pt position.

There is a lot of variables that come into play.

Joseph

 

[aron]

I want to share with you my experience to becoming an emt-b. I started off with a volunteer fire dep. We do structure, wildfire and medical. They brought me on with no experience and would keep me around so long as I passed all the training. They put me through fire I, hazmat, wild land modules, and the emt-b course. From the start of the emt-b course it took me roughly 2 months to complete going 2-3 times a week 8-16 hours a week. I had to maintain a grade above 80% which is not that hard but you would be surprised how many students that filters out. After the class and testing, I had to have a certain amount of patient contacts (15 ea) with the hospital and other ambulance service and 20 hours shadowing at both facilities. That is another few weeks of my time. I had to then take a national emt test called the national registry, which you will have to do, and wait about a week to get the results back. After all that is done you have to become certified with your state by sending in all your certs and info to the state, which takes about 2 weeks to complete. Once that was done we started on a probationary period which is a minimum of 15 contacts and at least 2 months supervised probation. We as emts are supervised and permitted to work under a doctors licence. Everything we do is what the doctors tells us we can do, so if he doesn't think your ready to tech by yourself you continue with probation until he does. In a perfect world it will take you at least 6 months to start working as an emt-b. For some it's takes longer, Way longer. There are still students, that were in my class, trying to pass the national test. Anyway. The hours are great. We are divided into crews. 7 crews for everyday of the week. We work that one day a week, minimum. But I could be here 24/7 if I wanted to. As for pay. 11$ for no training. It bumps up to 13$ with your emt-b. BTW training doesn't stop with your class. It's on going until the day you get out of it.