How many times were you asked about your EMT experience?

[luv2sd]

I'm planning on taking EMT-B lecture and clinical courses next semester. They both add 10 credit hours to my schedule and my schedule is already close to the max credit hour limit. Of course I can wait till the summer but I just want to know how helpful getting an EMT-B certificate is. I'm not trying to do this just to pad my application since I'm going to do it anyway whether it helps or not when I apply to medical school, but how do adcoms look at EMT experience in general? Since so many applicants do it, is it considered as a "normal" activity?

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[Blue128K]

If you don't spend a significant of time after the class working as an EMT on an ambulance, it's basically worthless. You might get a question here or there about what you thought about the course or if you ever used the information, but the real plus to having the course is that it opens doors to clinical experiences you couldn't have had otherwise. I worked in EMS for about a year and a half and then in a hospital emergency room for 3 years and it came up in every single interview as a significant part of the interview (and I'm sure my acceptances too).

So bottom line: You don't use it? It's just another class on the transcript.

 

[luv2sd]

If you don't spend a significant of time after the class working as an EMT on an ambulance, it's basically worthless. You might get a question here or there about what you thought about the course or if you ever used the information, but the real plus to having the course is that it opens doors to clinical experiences you couldn't have had otherwise. I worked in EMS for about a year and a half and then in a hospital emergency room for 3 years and it came up in every single interview as a significant part of the interview (and I'm sure my acceptances too).

So bottom line: You don't use it? It's just another class on the transcript.

Who did you work for? national ambulance company or private company?

 

[Blue128K]

I worked for a non-profit ambulance company. It wasn't one of the big national ones like AMR or anything. Much more local. Each service has its own flavor- area it serves, types of calls (i.e.- medical emergencies vs. interfacility transports), units it runs (i.e. BLS (2 EMTs) vs. ALS (1 EMT and 1 medic or 2 medics)), etc.

Do some research on any of the services you are interested in working for. Some will give you a load of great experience and some will be essentially a glorified taxi service.

 

[Crixivan]

Since so many applicants do it, is it considered as a "normal" activity?

Less than 10% of the students coming into med school where I am have this sort of experience, but it didn't really matter. There have been a lot of threads about this topic lately, and the one thing I'd recommend is to worry about doing this after you've already secured a 30+ MCAT.

I was never asked about my clinical experiences specifically other than how they influenced my interest in medicine. Medical schools believe that they will give you all of the clinical experience you need and more, so the best way to impress them is to show that you can take standardized tests better than the other applicants.

 

[se2131]

Even though I only took the class and exam (though the class required a number of in-the-field patient assessments), it has come up in almost every single interview, and the discussion around it has been anywhere from 2-15 minutes.

 

[armybound]

5 interviews, never once asked about my EMT training or experience.

 

[Dr Stu]

in my interviews, questions about my EMT work has not come up. I'm glad that it didn't because the company I worked for was, as another SDN member so eloquently put it, a glorified taxi service.

 

[scrubsaresexy]

What about people who are EMTs and run emergency calls, not transport? Not to offend anyone, but from posts I've read before, it seems like a lot of EMTs on SDN work for transport companies, and less volunteer with a fire department, for example.

Has anyone been asked about their experiences with a fire dept or rescue squad?

 

[PTortho]

I have worked at a Fire/Rescue company for 5 years now, mainly as an EMT, ambulance driver, and squad EMT. It has come up at every interview that I've had and I believe it adds a lot to your application and chances of being accepted. If you are able to talk about your responsibilities such as crew and resource management and patient responsibilities, it shows your maturity and ability to interact with patients and future success in medical school. ALso, it shows a commitment to the community and service, something that I think schools like to see in their applicants. I have talked on average of 15 minutes in an interview on my volunteer experience alone.

However, I started when I was 16 and have many things that I can talk about from my experience and can address anything that the interviewer may ask me, ranging from patient exposure, to the EMS system as a whole in the county and how it functions. If you plan on just taking the course now, I believe it will add little to your application, other than just showing you took an EMT course.

Overall, its been a great experience and has helped me a lot in the process, especially because my shift officer wrote me a ridiculously good letter of recommendation. Schools want to see a commitment to an activity over a longer period of time than just a few months for a course. That is my take on it and I hope it helped....best of luck to you in this process!

 

[Captain Fantastic]

I was asked by an interviewer to pick a story from the ambulance and talk about it. I told her about my first class 1 MVC. We were first on the scene. Medic tood the driver, I got the pregnant passenger (she was at least conscious, unlike the driver). Fire came, extricated, and assisted. I talked mostly about what I learned from it: being the decision maker, directing the fire and first responders who were assisting, how the experience confirmed my desire to be in medicine, and how it confirmed my confidence that I could be successful in that role.

I worked for a hospital-based service. We had multiple trucks at each base and would rotate between e-calls and transports. So on any given shift you might do e-calls, followed by two radiation therapy (cross-town) transports, followed by more e-calls, and finish up with a NICU transport to St. Louis.

 

[Blue128K]

What about people who are EMTs and run emergency calls, not transport? Not to offend anyone, but from posts I've read before, it seems like a lot of EMTs on SDN work for transport companies, and less volunteer with a fire department, for example.

Has anyone been asked about their experiences with a fire dept or rescue squad?

I started when I was 16 with a fire department, when I was 18 got my EMT and started working for an ambulance (Majority emergency calls, few transports), and then when I was 19/20ish got a job in a busy ED and trauma center. Like I said before, these experiences have been the focus of every interview I've had (10 of them). I also wrote about them in my AMCAS personal statement and in some of the secondary essays. So it was obvious that they played a huge role in deciding to get into medicine and my undergrad experiences.

Admissions people are pretty good about picking up which of your application activities are significant and which are just space fillers, so I would say expect to get questioned more if it is a more significant part of your app (sounds obvious, but true).

Anyways, some of my interviews focused more on the fire department (since it is probably the most unique part), some on the EMS and ED experience.

 

[cofcemt]

I have worked at a Fire/Rescue company for 5 years now, mainly as an EMT, ambulance driver, and squad EMT. It has come up at every interview that I've had and I believe it adds a lot to your application and chances of being accepted.

I had the same experience, it came up in every interview and one of my interviewers was a paramedic before he went into med school. I loved becoming an EMT and all that is comes with. Like others have said it is the quality/quantity of the service. I lucked out and joined our volunteer college corp as a freshman and then got hired the next summer with the county EMS system which is all ALS 911, no convalescent transport. And whats different here in the south is that we don't have "drivers" we run a 2 man crew and borrow a firefighter do drive when we run a cat. 1 or 2 call.

All in all, it is a great way to get involved in the care of patients. I personally think that volunteering is a waste of time as you get little actual exposure (at least in the 5 hospitals around here) and more of a...hey can you run this up to blah and then change the bedding...blah blah blah.

This all come with the warning (from pretty much all EMS personnel on SDN), if you don't actually work with a company/system and just have the cert., it is not worth the time! Good luck, stick with it and have a great time as an EMT.

 

[Crixivan]

There is a good article on the topic here:

http://studentdoctor.net/blog/2008/01/09/forum-flashback-should-i-become-an-emt/

 

[moe_4eva]

I was asked about my experience as an EMT at almost every interview, by almost every interviewer. But then again, I chose to emphasize that on my PS and secondary, while others may have not. Really depends on what you want the adcoms to see when you apply. If I hadn't had any practical experience as an EMT, I probably wouldn't have brought it up at all.

 

[russiandoc]

i made sure to distinguish the difference between an EMT-B and an EMT-P. Then i explained what my scope of practice was an how much enjoy it and what doors it has opened for me. As a paramedic, when you tell an interviewer that you intubate, starts ivs, and give meds on your own they pretty much agree that you have been exposed to some part of medicine. They put a check mark and keep going.

 

[ParamedicMan]

I'm going to agree with russiandoc. For me at least, being a firefighter/paramedic has been a significant part of my life (and my career for the past six) of the past ten years. As a result, I made sure to highlight it in all of my interviews as a way of emphasizing my experience in the medical field. I think that and my age definitely helped separate me from the pack. But I also didn't rely on it to compensate for poor GPA and MCAT.
Even as a EMT-B, having actually experience outside of class (1 yr +) can help, especially if you work or volunteer in an ALS service, which will expose you to more advanced procedures and sicker patients.
I cannot emphasize enough that you should be taking EMT-B etc courses because you want to and it is a passion of yours, not because it is a perceived "check mark." We need people that are passionate about emergency medicine on the ambulances, not people trying use us for their own benefit. Remember, unlike a lot of other volunteer/work opportunities, this one can involve people's lives, and those patients deserve dedicated EMTs. I encourage anyone who wants to take the course to do a ride-along with an EMS service first to make sure that it is something they want to do. Regardless, if anyone has any questions, feel free to PM me,
Josh