Houston Area

[Wheel]

Looking to move back to Texas with the wife, and Houston looks like a good place for us to find jobs in our respective fields. If anyone knows about the agencies there I'd love to hear your thoughts. The agencies I've looked at are ETMC in Pasadena, mchd, Harris county esd-1, northwest in tomball, and cy creek. They all look pretty good.

Questions
1. What is the pay like for these places?
2. I know protocols in Texas can be great. What are they like at these organizations?
3. Any management issues?
4. Any bad practices from these places (forced OT, callbacks, etc.?)
5. What kind of benefits? (State retirement, 401k, education support, etc.)

Thanks for your help. I have a good idea about a lot of these and have read extensively on their websites. If I could get an opinion from people familiar with the systems it would help greatly.

 

[kymedic25]

Looking to move back to Texas with the wife, and Houston looks like a good place for us to find jobs in our respective fields. If anyone knows about the agencies there I'd love to hear your thoughts. The agencies I've looked at are ETMC in Pasadena, mchd, Harris county esd-1, northwest in tomball, and cy creek. They all look pretty good.

Questions
1. What is the pay like for these places?
2. I know protocols in Texas can be great. What are they like at these organizations?
3. Any management issues?
4. Any bad practices from these places (forced OT, callbacks, etc.?)
5. What kind of benefits? (State retirement, 401k, education support, etc.)

Thanks for your help. I have a good idea about a lot of these and have read extensively on their websites. If I could get an opinion from people familiar with the systems it would help greatly.

ETMC doesn't pay well. I went and talked to them about PT and they offered $13.50/hr.

HCEC (Harris County Emergency Corps, used to be HCESD-1) is an excellent service that is busy. All 24 hour shifts, I believe.

CCEMS - I hear they are a good service. I have not had good experiences with them when I have rendezvoused with them, but that could have been the crews, not the service.

NWEMS in Tomball just got a new EMS Director and I hear their pay was cut and I know people have left since then.

MCHD - I work for them PT (was full time for 5 years). They are in the process of looking for a new EMS Director and have had some issues in the past and present. Still clinically excellent and new medical director is doing a good job with the protocols.

 

[Wheel]

ETMC doesn't pay well. I went and talked to them about PT and they offered $13.50/hr.

HCEC (Harris County Emergency Corps, used to be HCESD-1) is an excellent service that is busy. All 24 hour shifts, I believe.

CCEMS - I hear they are a good service. I have not had good experiences with them when I have rendezvoused with them, but that could have been the crews, not the service.

NWEMS in Tomball just got a new EMS Director and I hear their pay was cut and I know people have left since then.

MCHD - I work for them PT (was full time for 5 years). They are in the process of looking for a new EMS Director and have had some issues in the past and present. Still clinically excellent and new medical director is doing a good job with the protocols.

Thank you for the information. I'm excited to possibly get to an area that pays well with good protocols. Is there anywhere else I should be looking in the area?

 

[kymedic25]

Thank you for the information. I'm excited to possibly get to an area that pays well with good protocols. Is there anywhere else I should be looking in the area?

You've named the best of the best in the area.

 

[Fox800]

Thank you for the information. I'm excited to possibly get to an area that pays well with good protocols. Is there anywhere else I should be looking in the area?

He basically covered it. I worked for MCHD for a year and know folks at MCHD and HCEC.

I'd recommend all the same places. MCHD and HCECs would be my top picks. I did some student shifts at HCEC there and it was definitely a gun and knife club type place. Lots of trauma, overdoses, MVAs, etc. HCEC came into existence because it's territory was so poor that the City of Houston never annexed it.

MCHD is more suburban/rural and has some very affluent areas (The Woodlands, Bentwater). I worked in a rural area (Montgomery) and saw a lot of medical emergencies (older folks) and MVAs.

Both have great equipment and will keep you busy. CCEMS seems like a solid operation although I never worked or rode out there. They cover a smaller area but they stay busy. We'd mutual aid with them a lot when I worked at MCHD, don't have anything bad to say about them.

 

[Wheel]

Does harris county run double medic? Any idea about the pay? I have a good idea about the rest of the services, but there isn't much on the Harris county site.

 

[kymedic25]

Does harris county run double medic? Any idea about the pay? I have a good idea about the rest of the services, but there isn't much on the Harris county site.

I believe they are similar to MCHD - double medic or medic/intermediate. Pay should be comparable to MCHD as well.

 

[Wheel]

I believe they are similar to MCHD - double medic or medic/intermediate. Pay should be comparable to MCHD as well.

Thank you. You've been a huge help.

 

[kymedic25]

Anything I can do to help, let me know.

 

[Sboyd]

FYI,
CCEMS has they're own academy whose paramedics graduate either this month or next. I've spent time with them, and the current medics are a good group.
They are funded by a district tax base whose allocations are in flux (so I hear).

Point being, get your app in but don't wait around for anything to suddenly develop.