alt Hacker NewsReasons I didn't become an EMT, ranked
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I decided to become a (volunteer [0]) firefighter at 60 (software development background). It has been awesome.
Last year, I considered becoming an "EMR" (Emergency Medical Responder) - the lowest level of certification for emergency medical care that there is (basically, you can get vitals and stats from the patient if they are conscious). Because of timing considerations, I ended up not doing the course.
A year later, I see my 2 fellow firefighters who did become EMR's having to 20+ hours a year of mandatory continuing ed/training to their lives, and I'm pretty glad I ended up not doing that.
The firefighter part, given that we're a small, very not-busy volunteer rural fire district with an awesome district chief and culture, continues to be fantastic.
[0] thanks to the unions in my county fire department, volunteers are required to go through all the same certifications as career firefighters. We lack their level of experience (mostly) because we don't go on as many calls.
I'm almost 50 and retired from tech a couple of years ago. I passed the NREMT test a little while ago.
I think that I could not do healthcare professionally if I wasn't old and had a lot of free time- it would have been thin pickings when I had a wife and kids. And a lot of the folks I work with have some deep, deep trauma and moral injuries from how poorly US healthcare treats 90% of the population.
But EMT-B is some of the lowest standards for getting into a position where I can help folks. Compared to a lot of the professional knowledge I have recieved, it's not super expensive or time consuming... like, $3k all in (including travel and supplies) and about 6 weeks of intensive study.
I am still considering what to do with that (I spent all day putting a cistern into my weird off-grid setup, so it's not like I don't have other work to be doing)>. But I have spent a lot of time with newer/beginner rock climbers and guiding is one thing. I did several days of music festival first-aid, and that was excellent and interesting. I do work at a free clinic and that's been very rewarding.
But I feel like I will have to try and get at least a couple of months of IFT or (preferably) 911 truck work to become as proficient as I'd like to be so that's what I am trying to find at the moment. But I am curious how that will go and what I will find.
Friend of mine was an EMT, and he advanced on and became a paramedic.
The work seemed to suit him, he enjoyed it. I'd hang out with him at his base of operations (he was a private paramedic in LA County).
Then, one day, he quit.
He quit, and didn't renew his certification.
And he won't talk about it, and, boy, yea, did he have some stories.
But something got to him.
If you're interested in this field, consider remote work; wilderness, expeditions, offshore. Potentially much more interesting than city work and scope of practice around the world differs, so there is sometimes the opportunity to be more involved.
Have a look at the Award in Remote Emergency Medical Technician[1] from the College of Remote and Offshore Medicine. It's 75 hours of online study, then a 6 day course in their classroom in Malta (another 50 hours). Afterwards you'll hold a recognised European tertiary qualification, but you'll still have to sort out local registration.
The AREMT course is actually also the first module in their full BSc in Remote Paramedic Practice programme.[2]
[1] https://corom.edu.mt/award-in-remote-emergency-medical-techn...
The Coursera course led by an MD will give you a good idea of the content of the class and can help you decide if you want the license: https://coursera.org/specializations/become-an-emt
This is a surprisingly interesting and relevant post to me that I decided to make an account to comment. I worked in IT and eventually as a programmer for 6 years, had a rough point in my life, and decided to take some time to reconsider my goals. I had always been interested in the medical field, and this was as good an opportunity as ever to do something new. I got my license and now am lucky to work 911 rescue in a larger city, both high call volume and high acuity (5 to 10 calls in 12 hours just on my truck).
Pros: - Societal good: There are few who would argue Emergency Medical personnel do harm. Being able to visibly see your work improving people's lives and contributing directly to the public good is incredibly self gratifying. - Handling emergencies: I am the one people call when things go wrong, in charge of patient care, managing scenes on the medical side. - Problem solving: each situation is unique. Assessing situations, determining patient care, and actively working difficult scenes can be fun and helps fulfill my unmedicated ADHD needs. - Handing out ambulance stickers to kids.
Cons: - Smells - Limited medical scope: I stop bleeding, give people oxygen, and get them to the hospital. I have very few medications, cannot intubate, and am not allowed to interpret an ECG. Paramedic is a 14 month program minimum that is a much larger time and money commitment, and even then, doctors are the ones that actually end up managing full patient care and make final decisions. - Pay: I took a very large pay cut. I knew this would happen, and I was incredibly burnt out at my previous job, but the medical field, especially first responders, gets away with low pay and high hours because they often rely on passion and many new people entering the field at the lower levels.
Ultimately, I still have not figured out what I want to do long term. I could go back to programming, but with the current job market, that seems inadvisable. THe medical field will pretty much always guarantee some job. I do want to pivot (still have not completed college), but see above untreated ADHD along with a few other personal things I need to work on. Nursing has higher pay, but puts you underneath doctors such that you rarely make independent medical decisions. And paramedic/firefighter is nice, but hard on the body plus issues in the culture previously discussed.
For anyone considering it, I do recommend taking a class. You can do it in 4 months with a one day a week class (how I did it), and volunteer somewhere. But understand the tradeoffs and recognize that is far from glamorous most of the time.
I kind of did this in reverse lol. I was an EMT on private ambulance for 5 years, went to paramedic school, then dropped out and became a software engineer. Coming from the other side, I can definitely relate to the experience of delaying something you want to do for reasons that, in hindsight, were mostly irrational.
OP: I've wanted to be an EMT for a long time, but I made excuses for years. I wanted to share some of them with y'all; maybe they resonate with you, or inspire you to do something you've been putting off.
Because worst-case, you might enjoy it.
If you're someone who offsets the typical HN vocation with outdoor recreation like hiking, cycling, climbing, mountaineering, etc., then consider the weeklong Wilderness First Responder (WFR) course. Much more practically useful than EMT for the majority of time where you don't have an ambulance handy, and you can scratch a similar itch as the author's by doing volunteer Search and Rescue work.
How about: raging PTSD? A former buddy of mine had that like crazy, and apparently it's rampant in the profession (of course it is!).
Also, they (BC Ambulance) treat you like garbage when you need assistance, and effectively force you back to work or to go find a job elsewhere.
It's shocking how badly we treat the people that willingly take on life's hardest challenges (for low pay, I might add). It's amazing any are even left after all that BS.
I like it when people are willing (and capable, writing-wise) to wear their hearts on their sleeve like that.
Also, I bet the whole blog post's worth would flash through the author's mind within all of 10 seconds whenever they were reminded of the possibility of taking the course. It takes both patience and self-discipline to put it all on paper like that.
Great blog post! Makes me want to take an EMT course :-)
There has to be a toll seeing people suffer probably one of the lowest points of their lives, seeing kids die, seeing brutality like that where an EMT is warranted.
You probably pay the cost.
What is the time commitment for a volunteer EMT?
I would've expected a top reason to be the possibility of seeing mutilated bodies, dead babies and children, and other fun stuff like that. EMTs on this thread, how do you cope with that?
My dad liked to tell me about cadaver college because I gag at the thought or sight of gore and that's kept me working on trees, cars and computers and not humans
Going on a slight tangent, I wanted to do the same thing but with firefighting instead. One thing I've found is that a good portion of your time is supposedly spent doing fundraisers
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I have written about this before here on HN.
I obtained a BS in Aerospace Engineer in 1998. After job jumping several times I realized I didn't care for it. I was basically a "paper" engineer, which was my fault as I never pursued jobs that did "real" engineering.
Anyway, around 2003/2004 I went to night school for EMT. The purpose was to be a dive master on dive boats (I was/am a dive master - I don't dive anymore). It was fun.
My engineering job sucked so I jumped into paramedic school right after EMT. I really enjoyed it. About a month from graduating PM school, county fire department came in to class and said they would hire paramedic only but we would have to cross train to firefighter.
In Feb 2006 I was 35 yo with a 9 month old baby and decided if I didn't do it then I never would so I applied and got hired then department put me through fire school.
It was the best career decision of my life. It didn't take long to see a bunch of people get hurt from the job, so I figured I better have a back up plan since I also have chronic health issues. From 2010 to 2015 I did an online Masters degree in CS. After completing it I started working part time remote jobs as a developer.
Then COVID hit in 2020 and they pulled me out of the field due to my health issues. I turned 50 and was getting tired after 14 years. I started applying to full time jobs and landed one.
In 2022 I switched jobs again for a better org and I am still here. I just switched positions from Java dev to cloud engineer in May.
I absolutely enjoyed 85+% of FF/pm but it is a young person's game. It gave me confidence I probably never would have found. Again, it was literally the best career move I ever made and would recommend anyone to do it.