I am already a licensed EMT and the only job that seems available in my area is mainly a patient transfer ambulance (i.e, bringing the elderly folks to and from the nursing home to the hospital). This company does have a 911 contract and does respond to 911 calls occasionally, but it would mainly just be an inter-facility transport job. Would something like this count as clinical experience? Would it be a valuable experience or should I find something else?
Is it worth applying for an EMS job?
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Go for it. As an EMT-B that's the only good paying job you will find. I plan on going all the way to AEMT so I can work for a 911 service or ER tech. In my area they mostly hire paramedics or advance EMT's for techs since you know how to start a line and other stuff. You can always volunteer for a 911 service and do like a 24hr shift on a weekend.
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You will be fine. You will probably do as well as anyone that volunteers at an emergency department in a good area of town.
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A lot of people in 911-response knock IFT, but I know several people who've done IFT runs for years before coming to 911 and they're generally pretty good medics. Some of them have a few tricks up their sleeves from their IFT days, and can also do some critical care skills here and there. Honestly, you end up learning a good amount in any EMS job where you actively work with pts.
Keep in mind that you will see a much higher percentage of actually sick patients doing IFT, and chances to get a story and discuss the pt with the nurses. You can learn a lot about different drugs and pathologies if you are proactive and look things up. You also get to see almost every aspect of the healthcare system. You interact with patients in their homes, you meet their family, you meet their doctors and nurses, sometimes you get to stay in the room during their appointments and watch the docs work, you may transport the same patient every week at 8am on wednesday so you get to know them and have some long-term followup as they go through radiation treatments for cancer or whatever. Also, I've done a good number of "IFT" calls that we diverted to the ER. You do still need to be on your toes, think critically and do patient assessment even if some nurse tells you the pt is stable and this is their baseline.
I think my application has been made 10x stronger by working as an EMT. I can tell a lot of good stories, have interacted directly with and cared for hundreds of patients, made clinical decisions and provided treatments based on my diagnoses, etc.
If you can get into a position where you're doing more 911, you can write it off as good leadership experience, too. I think EMS will look great on a med school app because it values a lot of the same characteristics that a doctor needs to have. You're in charge of any scene where medical care is priority (on the scene of a shooting police are in charge, at a fire the FD is in charge) so you might have 10 people looking to you for instructions. You need to make important, sometimes life-or-death clinical decisions, and sometimes you need to make them quickly and with incomplete information. You have to deal with policy/paperwork BS and balance sticking your neck out to do what is right for the patient vs following the letter of the law and covering your arse.
Oh, also, if you work Sat/Sun, you may have a lot of down time during which you can study.
Do eet.
I think my application has been made 10x stronger by working as an EMT. I can tell a lot of good stories, have interacted directly with and cared for hundreds of patients, made clinical decisions and provided treatments based on my diagnoses, etc.
If you can get into a position where you're doing more 911, you can write it off as good leadership experience, too. I think EMS will look great on a med school app because it values a lot of the same characteristics that a doctor needs to have. You're in charge of any scene where medical care is priority (on the scene of a shooting police are in charge, at a fire the FD is in charge) so you might have 10 people looking to you for instructions. You need to make important, sometimes life-or-death clinical decisions, and sometimes you need to make them quickly and with incomplete information. You have to deal with policy/paperwork BS and balance sticking your neck out to do what is right for the patient vs following the letter of the law and covering your arse.
Oh, also, if you work Sat/Sun, you may have a lot of down time during which you can study.
Do eet.
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Thanks for the responses! I think I will go ahead and apply. Are EMS companies usually nice to college students in that they understand that you may only be able to work one day a week? Did you guys work part time or per diem?
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It depends. Last year I applied to a private company for driving a transport van, the interview went great, but when they asked what do I see my self doing in the next 2 years, I replied working on my bachelor's degree. I didn't get the job.
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Yes it gives you great, hands-on clinical experience, but EMS is so overdone by premeds that it's no longer considered super unique. Plus, it's super time consuming. Find a volunteer job at a Free Clinic or something where you spend 1-2 hrs a week taking patient vitals. Same clinical experience, less time committment, looks same on app. If you truly love doing EMS, then go for it.
You won't be able to start as a per diem, most likely. I got hired on part time but at 24 hours (three 8's) per week. I'm a non-trad and when asked the "what do you see yourself doing in 5 years?" I was actually not sure at the time, and I mentioned that I was thinking about either going on to become a paramedic or trying for medical school. My company is very flexible about class schedules as long as the classes pertain to paramedic school... Not sure what's going to happen this summer when I have class 5 days a week for 7 weeks. Might be looking for another job afterwards, we'll see.
I don't think working on a bachelor's should really be a problem unless it means you don't have enough free days to devote to EMTing. This field has pretty high burnout/turnover rate, and I got the impression during my interview that I was pretty much expected to move on either to paramedic or to a non-field-EMS job after a few years. Maybe this is because I already had a bachelor's degree and some experience in other fields, I dunno.
I guess I'm kind of an unusual situation, but working EMS has been pretty much perfect for me. I think it really takes my app from being mediocre to pretty strong even if it is something that everyone does.
Volunteering at a free clinic may indeed be a better option, especially for a full-time student. However, I don't think you can say the clinical experience even comes close to EMS. As an EMT you're pretty much thrown into the fire: you take a 1-semester course, apply for a job, and all of a sudden you're on your own in the back of an ambulance with an unresponsive patient.
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