How is the schooling to become a paramedic?

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Tk11

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I'm just starting out at a community college. In January I'll be taking 2 classes with a clinical rotation mixed in. This is just for a EMT-B then of course I'll have to go back and take more classes, and more, and more. At the college I believe it's about a 5 semester program with the fifth being a advanced life support internship. I just want to know, how's all the schooling? Hard? Stressful? Or what? The two classes I'll be taking.. One is Monday and Wednesday a 3 hour leture, the other is Friday a 6 hour lab and clinical rotation mixed in.
 
It's easy. It's more difficult to become a welder. You can doze through most of it.

Just curious, Have you actually read any of the posts here?
 
DEmedic said:
It's easy. It's more difficult to become a welder. You can doze through most of it.

Just curious, Have you actually read any of the posts here?
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No I havent, new here.
 
 
I hate to think about it, but if I sit down and crunch the numbers, Paramedic school was close to a financial disaster for me. I already had a decent paying full time job when I started it. but I had to cut back my hours due to the huge number of clinical hours we had to do, the classroom time, the study time.

Tuition and books came out to over $7,000, not counting the cost of pre reqs or the cost of EMT school, but that cost is only part of the equation. Look at it this way. I wound up doing well over 600 hours of clinicals and ambulance time. If I had worked those nearly 700 hours, I would have made nearly $10,000 before taxes. Then factor in the time spent in class, the cost in gas, wear and tear on your car. Starting from EMT school, the cost of becoming a Paramedic probably cost me tens of thousands of dollars when everything is factored in.

Also keep in mind a lot of people fail or quit Paramedic school, which means all those costs up to that point went up in smoke.

The average Paramedic pay is like 35,000 a year. If you are 19 years old and living at home with the parents with no job prospects it might make sense, or if you are already a firefighter and a Paramedic license is all you need to get hired into a department full time, it might make sense. In just about any other scenario it doesn't, at least not financially.

Something to think about.
 
I studied like a fiend in EMT school. I really want to go on to paramedic, but I'm not sure if can devote the time needed. 8 hours (one full day) of class per week to start. How much time is the average needed for decent study? Is it possible to go to school and give it the proper effort, but to still have a little bit of a life?
 
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BlueJayMedic said:
Is that a ballpark average across the US or in your local area?
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Thats a really lowball number, in my opinion..... if I were fulltime employee at the company I work for, I would be making more than that as an EMT.
 
The cost of living varies greatly across the US. 35,000 in one city might be ok, but practically poverty in another. I think some companies may pay more according to the cost of living. I could be totally off the mark, but it might be a possibility. Anyone want to weigh in?
 
24-36k a year for central nm paramedics that are not fire based to start.
 
I know we don't do this job for the money but the responsibility to wage ratio here doesn't seem right. The cost of living must vary greatly between Canada and the US.
 
BlueJayMedic said:
I know we don't do this job for the money but the responsibility to wage ratio here doesn't seem right. The cost of living must vary greatly between Canada and the US.
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There's also a huge difference in education. As in, ya'll have to be educated, US EMS doesn't. Your providers are licensed clinicians in most areas, ours are considered technicians and vocational workers.
 
BlueJayMedic said:
I know we don't do this job for the money but the responsibility to wage ratio here doesn't seem right. The cost of living must vary greatly between Canada and the US.
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It's mostly just supply vs demand. We have a large supply of EMS workers relative to the number of available jobs, so demand for labor is low. Employers simply don't have to pay much.

You see the same thing in nursing. 10 years ago, in many parts of the country hospitals were so hard up for RN's that even as a new grad with just an ASN and no experience, you could tell your prospective employers what unit you were going to work in, how much they were going to pay you, and what shifts you were going to work, and they would fight over you. Now in many of those same places, even experienced RN's with 4-year degrees have a really hard time finding a decent job. The only thing that has changed in that time is that the supply of RN's has increased dramatically.
 
Trauma Queen said:
Thats a really lowball number, in my opinion..... if I were fulltime employee at the company I work for, I would be making more than that as an EMT.
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Yea I was paid 36k a year starting as a part-time EMT in Washington state, although I was working a full-time amount of hours since I got to pick an choose my work days and whether they were 12s or 24s.
 
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