The "What It's Really Like" Thread of EMS

[RocketMedic]

The "best system in EMS" thread left me with a revelation: most of the claims made are the party line, based off of reputations, marketing and recruitment claims, guesses and individual anecdotes. That's essentially the only way we can really understand systems, because A) people aren't writing academic studies comparing and contrasting different ones and B) people learn a lot more from anecdote and doing than number-crunching. With that in mind, this thread is intended for people to share relevant personal opinion, anecdotal events and their knowledge of places that may not necessarily be found or propagated by recruiters.

This isn't a thread to bash employers, nor is it a thread to loudly scream the party line. It's only a place to share facts on the ground.

 

[VentMonkey]

I'll go first. My service does its damndest to make sure the employee is taken care of, has never skipped a pay check and is very much reputable not only in the eyes of California, but a serious contender in the EMS world for several reasons.

We have our own RW and ground CCT service (the only ground CCT in the county). Our owner is truly invested in his employees and and takes great pride in knowing what it is that would make his employees happiest (within reason). These are cold hard, firsthanded facts.

They (our service) have fought tooth and nail to see that our paramedics not only remain the sole paramedic providers, but are given their just do as a result even if most are undeserving or severely lack the mental maturity to carry such responsibilities. Mind you this is California, an overwhelmingly fire-based state.

Our fleet is detailed and washed rain, sleet, or snow, and the same is expected of our employees. Slobs need not apply, nor do they go undetected very long.

I could go on and on, but without beating a dead horse, if you want arguably thee best EMS system in terms of sole provider advancement and opportunities in California, then this is the place.

I often tease (half joking) that this is the closest you'll come to Texas EMS in California.

 

[StCEMT]

The place I work isn't bad, but certainly not what I would have in mind for a career. Half of the EMS folks in the area have probably worked here, its definitely more of a foot in the door place.

Pay is pretty good for a college student, but nothing amazing for you wife/kids/dog/mortgage folks, not until you are here for a loooooong time and it just aint worth waiting that one out with the options that are out here.

I like some of the night sups more, but have worked with a few day shift sups and they're good folks. Heard a lot of grumbling about upper management people though, but I have barely had any interaction with them so cant speak from experience. That being said, our medical director does seem pretty involved. He emailed my partner about a call he was on a few months ago to talk about how it went along.

I haven't really been exposed to many, but from what little bits I have picked up here, I feel like our protocols are actually pretty good and we are given a fair amount of leeway to work. I like that they switched up our cardiac arrest protocols to CCR, we are allowed to be pretty aggressive with airway management as needed, and for the most part just seems pretty well laid out.

Equipment is kind of hit or miss. We have a bunch of nicer/newer ALS trucks, which most of them I like and seem to be good trucks. Except the damn Canadian trucks, those things are made for elves, even my short *** cant stand in those. However, I don't like how are bags are organized, our vents kinda suck, and the trucks aren't as stocked as our bags (OB kits, trauma stuff, IV supplies etc. are there, but meds, laryngoscope, even the glucometer are all in the bags). That is probably one of my bigger complaints. The BLS trucks are just plain ****. 500k miles and big patches of paint missing and the interiors don't look all that great either, that is half the reason I hate working BLS shifts.

The people are probably what I like most here. Sure, there are some douchebags, bullshitting hero's, or just plain clueless folks (basically where new EMT's start), but there are a lot of good people who enjoy their job too. My Thursday partner is a great dude and I have multiple other EMT's and medics that I love getting to work with.

Branching out a bit, there are two places that are great for experience. You will get ran into the ground, but you will see everything at those places. There are a lot of fire departments out here with very good tax bases (more than one place has ambulances that look like fire trucks), so there are definitely good places to make a very good pay check here. Branch out of STL itself and there are a few ambulance districts that pay very, very well ( I know some people making 100k+), but those jobs are very hard to get.