welcome to the club
We'll take your questions in order, or at least try...
1. Training is a linear progression from emt to paramedic.You start as a "brand new, know-nothing" emt and will have to work hard to impress everyone above you to go to paramedic school if it is a tech type program. This will take you approximately two to two and a half years. Should you decide to go the college route you will progress through emt to emt-intermediate, to paramedic during the course of your education. This option will take you approximately two to four years depending on the university or college.
All of the training requirements can be looked up on your state medical control web site( i.e. in SC it is the Department of Health and Enviromental Control ((DHEC to us))) Remember the requirements are state and region specific.
2. Pay is increasing, that is the best I can say. Govenment and private sector employers are still paying us as "by the hour" employees, like we work on an assembly line putting together widgets. I don't know how long it will take them to realize they are not paying me for what I actually do, but for my intellectual property of what I know how to do. They see us watching cable tv and sleeping, so it looks like a poor return on their investment. Eventually they will get the picture.
3. You will work as assigned. Shifts vary nationwide, county to county, service to service. The next town over might be working straight eight hour days, or like my county where we work a 24/72 shift. The hours will depend solely on your flexibility and who you employer is. Tell you up front, as a newbie it will not pay for you to be choosy about the shift hours. Work the hours assigned, pay attention, and learn something. This job isn't learned out of the books in your hands, but out in the public eye where every mistake is magnified a thousand times.
4. I hope for your sake your husband, or BF, understands what you do or what you are getting yourself into. If not, then good luck. Kids think we have a cool job, no doubt about it, but they aren't so understanding about it when mommy or daddy has standby on the "big days" (Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, etc...) and cannot be with the family. That's when it gets hard, very hard. I have four children who mean the world to me, but at some point in their lives they have all come up to me and asked me not to go to work today, cause they miss me. Remember, this job can call you away not just for your shift, but a week or more. I was called in one night for a hurricane, and told to bring four spare uniforms, food and enough money to last a week, they were dead serious. You will be subject to recall for things like that, and a lot of employers will terminate you for failing to respond to an "all-call."
You will learn to value the time you have with your family more than ever. Growing old will know longer scare you, but the idea of infirmity will terrify you. Your children will receive so many hugs they will have callouses, and lets just say your husband will reap the benefits from your occasional adrenaline/endorphin high.
5. You won't be alone out there. Depending on where you work and live, the crew may be made up of just about any combination of certifications you can imagine. As a newbie I would hope they put you with someone senior, preferably a medic with enough experience to bail you both out when things go badly. This whole job, your whole career is a learning process. We don't assemble machinery, we don't pour concrete. There is no point when you will learn everythin about the human condition. About the time I think I have seen all of the stupid things people can do to themselves and others, along comes some chucklehead who makes me step back and say, "DAMN, what the hell happened to him?" May you never stop learning.
6. This is another thing that will depend on your service. Where I used to work was very organized, like the military, and new recruits were issued everything they would need to run calls except underwear. They would give you a reduced allotment of uniforms and a new pair of boots every year. Another service gave us a uniform allowance, showed us the guidelines for the uniform then set us up with a uniform company to purchase our stuff. It gave some leeway to your personal preference. I need pants more often than most people, don't mind geting dirty as long as I can put on a clean pair after the call. So when my coworkers ordered three pair of pants, I ordered five or six pair of pants to get me through they year. Another place I worked did not provide uniforms at all, nor an allowance. That stopped when people started wearing whatever they felt like to work that day. No provided uniforms, no uniform policy in place, you cannopt discipline someone because his Buzzcocks t-shirt may have been offensive to some... still laughing at that place.
I hope this helps you to some extent, but ultimately the choice is yours. You don't say how old you are, so remember, this is a young persons game and you are exponentially more likely to injure yourself the older you are. I have found I do not bounce as well as I used to, regardless of how young I think I am. I always advocate nursing to people starting out. The career path is better defined, there is much greater diversity in positions, the pay is definitely better throughout your career, and I have yet to see a nurse who didn't work where there is central heat and air conditioning. For my two cents, go to nursing school, then become an emt or paramedic. This way you'll have something to fall back on if something happens (not that nursing is easy, sorry Mom for implying it is.)
