Anyone in the EMS field working full time while doing premed?

[Boominlacrosse]

Hey everyone, I'm new to the forum. I joined to get some input on the route I am planning to go. I'm currently transferring from a community college to WWU, to finish my bachelor. I'm going to speak with an advisor about this when the time comes, but is my bachelors degree considered my premed? I imagine there's certain courses I'll have to take if so but I wanted some input on that. I recently finished my emergency med tech certification course, but due to there not being a bigger college here I'd like to move to work and goto school at the same time. Is anyone on here currently doing so? The district I'll be in runs 72 hr + weeks for full time workers. I'm planning to work as an EMT until I'm eligible for HPSP and attending med school. I'm just curious if anyone on here can manage the hours and still maintain good grades.

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[Chris07]

I did it, but granted, I only worked part-time <24 hours per week on average. Working 72 hours a week implies 24 hour shifts; don't do it. Going to school while working that many hours a week, is very difficult unless you only plan on taking like one class at a time. If the schedule rotates days then forget it. I've seen many co-workers try and go to school while working rotating 24-hour shifts. It was really hard for them as they were always trying to find coverage, exhausted, and getting held-over on a late call and end up missing a morning class.

Unless you really need the income, I would suggest part-time field work. Working full-time is possible, as other have done it....it's just not easy. Get the experience, but put more emphasis on your school performance.

 

[DrDarce]

I worked part time as an EMT during undergrad and it was manageable. One semester I had fridays off and I worked thursday, friday and saturday night 12 hour shifts. Depending on how busy it is that night, getting some studying done was definitely doable. As far as 72hr weeks... that would be brutal even if you aren't taking classes at the same time. I'd say maybe start your classes first and then decide on how many hours would be doable for you so you can let your employer know the schedule you are looking for.

For your question on if your bachelors degree will count as premed, yes. You can be whatever major you want, as long as you take the required courses. I'm sure your adviser will get you on track for that. Good luck.

 

[calivianya]

Not an EMT, but I worked full time in healthcare through all of my premed courses. 36 hours a week, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights 1900-0700. It really helps if you can manage to make all your classes T/Th and M/W... one semester, I also had Friday morning classes and everything was awful. Instead of getting less than four hours of sleep for just one day, I got less than four hours of sleep for two days in a row, and that was dangerous. Nearly drove off the road several times on the way home from work or school.

I really don't think three 24 hour shifts would work. Three 12s half killed me.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I'm not an EMT, but I am in the military (and until I left my command yesterday, I had a healthcare role) and worked about the same amount of hours (sometimes more, rarely less), including 24 hour shifts. I took a full load while doing this.

If you absolutely have to, it can be done. However, I would not recommend it. If you can work less or take fewer classes, do it. With that many work hours and a full load, you will be hard pressed to find time for ECs or even studying.

 

[Medic2MD4me]

When I worked as a medic I had set shift days and attended class on my off days. I don't see how it could work if you're on a rotating shift schedule. At least without jumping through a lot of hoops like shift swaps or maybe seeing if there's other class sections you could attend variably. Also, 72hr work weeks? Wowza, is it 3 days one week on, one week off?

I will say I got like 80% of my classwork done during downtime at work which was nice.

 

[Kurk]

I plan to work part-time as an EMT too. From what others tell me, it's manageable but full time is just not realistic with all those 24 hour shifts.

 

[Welshman]

Of course People can do it. The question is why would you want to? In my large NE city I was making $1.50 more an hour in private EMS vs. my job at my Uni's IT office where I could do homework and generally just mess around. To me, $1.50 was definetly not worth getting home from shifts at 9am on Monday morning then trying to make it to class by 11am.

However, it was great healthcare experience in that it showed me what it's like to look after patients and the crappy aspects of medicine in general. But you don't need to work full time to understand that or learn from it. In my opinion I would work full time over the summer then translation to part time when school starts. You could easily get 500 odd hours over the summer and would be above and beyond what most people get.