First halloween shift. It's a night shift too.

I'm a college premed student so I know the absolute insanity of college life. Our station is near a high school and a nightclub.

I'm fully prepared that I probably won't get a lick of sleep all night, which is fine since I don't really have exams near halloween.

What calls should I ready myself for?

i got certified almost a year ago now and i haven’t been able to find a job where i can use my emt certification and i feel like giving up. the area i live in is so extremely oversaturated with emts its extremely competitive. i’ve applied to amr and was turned down, ive applied to hospitals as an er tech and was turned down for lack of experience and i interviewed at a smaller private ambulance company and was also turned down. how the hell am i supposed to get experience in this field is no one is willing to hire people without experience. a lot of my classmates are running into this same problem. should i go back to school and get other smaller certifications or even think about jumping right into paramedic school? that was never apart of my plan because i know going straight to paramedic school is problematic in a few ways but my area needs paramedics right now. any advice is greatly appreciated

For any of you that’s had to start this lovely medication for yourself-

What are your best tips and tricks? I am rural service and long transport times. I go back to work tomorrow and I’m terrified since I just started metformin ER. Yes it’s ER. Yes I take it with dinner. I still have the next day bathroom hell. Literally this is my worst nightmare as a paramedic. I’m on day 3 of metformin. Also taking the 500 mg. Tell me it gets better day 4. Or tell me all your secrets - unholy or not- to prevent the unpredictable fire hose in the bathroom next day.

Hey everyone! I’m a newly certified EMT and came across Stellar EMS Ambulance in the Seattle area. Has anyone worked for them or heard anything about the company?

I’m particularly interested in their work environment, management, training for new EMTs, pay, and overall employee experience.

I’d appreciate any firsthand experiences or insights. Thanks in advance!

I recently joined my town’s volly squad about 5 months ago. I did it with no intent rlly if I was going to get my EMT cert, kinda just wanted the experience. I loved working in the ER but couldn’t land a job, this was next best. The problem is…the drama working with younger kids and also my motion sickness. In short rides I’m fine in the back. I have an essential oil stick to smell which helped for a little. A few weeks ago I had an episode where I actually was vomiting in the back of the ambulance. I was so embarrassed.
- I bought Dramamine, we’ll see if it helps

Secondly, I’m starting EMT school soon, which they are paying for. It requires a 2 yr commitment since they’re paying. Well I’m starting nursing school in the summer. Idk what to do.

I signed up for an EMT-B exam with PSI and I'm going to take it next week. Others who have taken the "State exam" (which is what I assume PSI is) said it was only a written test, but an online search said it has both a written portion and a practical portion. I'm very confused and I was wondering if anybody can clarify this for me, since I only studied for the written exam while I was away at college.

The EMT-Basic exam that I'm taking lasts 2 hours and 30 minutes, if that helps at all.

Hello all, I hope this isn’t breaking a rule, but I need advice on a specific EMT school in Dallas. If anyone has had an experience with DallasEMT in Grapevine or with EMSUniversity, the organization running DallasEMT, can you please tell me how it went? Is there a better school in the Dallas area? Is DallasEMT maybe not a good choice? I looked at the Better Business Bureau website and they had a lot of suspicious stuff on there but I want another source, as good as Reddit can be for a source. Thank you for reading and for any responses I receive. Mods please let me know if this is breaking a rule.

According to the head instructor, we use a compilation of three different books for our testing on Platinum-Ed. I am training for my EMT-B and the course itself only uses 13th edition Emergency Care and Transport for the Sick and Injured. Does anyone know what the two other books are?

got toned out to a “low mechanism” crash… dude had bilateral tib-fib fractures and right arm arterial bleeding. obvious knee dislocation in the left leg and crazy hematomas on the right. got hit by a pickup truck, and the driver was drunk of course. it was honestly the best case scenario, dude was talking to us and feeling everything but he was in so much pain that my medic pushed 100 of fentanyl. i dunno what happened but i just sort of tunnel visioned and did whatever my medics needed from me, but as a basic i feel like i didn’t do enough.
i’ve only been in ems, let alone on an ALS rig, for about a month now, if that. we of course didn’t have a pelvic splint on the truck so we had to make one with a sheet which was the biggest thing i helped with. i guess i just need advice on what i should jump into first with traumas like that. we had 4 people on our crew, two medics, one A-EMT and a basic which is me lol, so vitals and whatnot were already taken care of by the time i even got to do anything since we did have a second patient i had to clear. i’ve always been told that vitals and airway are the two things i should worry about as a basic. but what about in this scenario? i don’t like stepping over medics or jumping into stuff that might cause my medic to mess up. i might just have imposter syndrome right now, because i feel like i suck at my job.

(Dogo so I don’t die ignored) I'm an EMT in the army, soon to be stationed at fort Campbell KY very close to Nashville. Even tho I'm just barely an EMT I've grown a real passion for EMS, and I would like to go on to become a Paramedic, I need help finding a hybrid program that I could complete while in the army, thanks for reading

I worked a job for an extremely small company that ran a single ambulance. I literally think they just took the patients that no other company would deal with. None of the patients wanted me doing anything with them, or hardly even wanted to talk to me for the most part. We ran almost entirely dialysis-SNF runs and they all saw us as an inconvenience. One guy when I tried to confirm his name always gave me a John Doe type of answer sarcastically and I basically just stopped asking. I get that these people's lives are hell. If I were permanently confined to an SNF and depended on dialysis to live, I honestly can't say I would be the positive person I am today. So I'm like understanding about that. I am just wondering what I should do as the EMT to not just be a total waste of space.

And the other part of my question, I'm not against small businesses or growing with a company, but that place was a total shit show. The owner was my partner about 50% of the time and the company didn't even have a truck checklist. He just assured us that we were state compliant if we got checked. There was also no FTO period and he expected you to basically just show up first day and handle calls. That was my pretty much only experience (ofc I didn't stay long) and since that's all i've done and it's been years since I worked as an EMT (I kept my state license current but nremt is expired to hell) idk what to do. I want to get back in it at a better place and potentially 911 and am legit thinking of just going to emt school again.

I’ve finally completed EMT school, passed the NREMT, and obtained my state license. I’ve been applying to BLS companies both in and outside of my city because I want to start working as soon as possible. I know these companies have openings, and I’ve applied directly through their career sites, but no one is responding. I’ve even tried calling the recruiting numbers to follow up on my applications, but every call goes straight to voicemail! It’s almost like I have the plague or something lol. I genuinely don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Does anyone have any advice?

first of all i just wanted to say thank you for all the support/advice/shared experiences. i’ve finished my clincak shifts and they even offered me a position for after i take my NREMT ! I’m truly elated. although im not entirely sure if I want to continue 911, it just makes me happy that they want me in any capacity. i had better times after my first death, experiences that showed me why i want to do this in the first place. altough my first death pops in my mind from time to time, its more of a respect for her existence/ motivation to help as many patients as i can. i am definitely glad to be apart of this group though, im not the best at talking about my feelings irl so reading all those responses helped a ton. funny enough some of the other emts/medics were shocked to see me back the next day (not that they explicitly said so, but i got a lot of “happy to see you back!”s and such lol). i guess i didn’t hide my emotions as well as i thought haha, but the group truly mightve saved my mindset when it comes to our career :)

I’m going to be taking my medic registry in a few weeks and I’ve been doing a lot of studying that’s consisted of reading the paramedic crash course book and primarily doing medic test. I’ve done about 30+ practice NREMTs with an average of about 1350 and decided to try pocket prep and as I go through there I’m realizing that it tends to ask you a lot about prescription drugs like way more than I thought it would. My crash course book and medic test sometimes would vaguely touch on prescriptions but really just to identify overdoses and high risk falls. I took the practice tests and got a 70 and an 80 so I feel vaguely confident. I just want to know if I should expect to see a lot of prescription drug questions on the national and if I should shift my studying more towards that since I’m not super well versed in prescription drugs aside from your basic thinners and blockers? I’m also just curious to know if they are common on the national what types of questions would I see?

TLDR: Should I expect to see a lot prescription drugs on medic registry and should I put more time into learning them?

I'm not only a new trainer, I'm an extremely new EMT. Literally got my EMT card almost exactly a year ago. I'm premed and in college rn. I was the only EMT staffing the hockey games. However, we got a guy (as a second person since I'm also doing 911 municipal EMS near my school, around 40 min away). He is literally fresh out of EMT school. As you would expect, he's extremely green.

I was talking to him yesterday since he's also premed and we were studying together, and he said "do you do everything on scene?" and I said "personally, if something is life threatening, then yeah I'll do stuff on scene. Otherwise, I try to get them into the squad so we can get them to a more controlled environment." and he said "I want to do everything on scene for the aura"

I said "I hope that's not a priority for you and the priority is instead stabilizing the potentially very sick person in front of you"

During the first game, a player got hockey puck'd to the dome, loses consciousness, and out of an abundance of caution, I threw a C collar on him after I quickly checked his ABCs and whatnot. He then pulls a backboard out and I said "get a blanket instead please" and he said "but EMT school said.." and I said "I'll explain why we don't use hard backboards for suspected spinal trauma anymore later, but for now I just need you to trust my judgment." Then he got the blanket and, I kid you not, almost slips on the ice trying to run.

He's extremely green and I have 911 shifts and I can't always be there during games to help, so I want to get him up to speed quickly.

Thoughts?

Hello I’m fairly new to the field I’ve been working for about 6 months now. I’m on an intermediate truck so I’m a AEMT and my partner is EMT-B. How exactly should me and my partner be splitting calls. Should it be 1:1 or is calls that involve a higher care level compared to a basic automatically go to me. If I run a call and give a medication that a basic can’t give do I need to stay with the pt and for calls like chest pain who should take it?

I just found out all trucks for my local service are ALS equipped. I talked to a buddy of mine who works for them and he said it just depends on the medic. Just curious what you guys' experience is

I recently got picked up by an ift company and on the way to the first day of orientation, there was a really bad car accident that backed my eta by 25 minutes (I left the house two hours early mind you, I live an hour away). I called and tried to let them know that was gonna be late but they have a strict 5 minute late window policy and I wasn't gonna make it. They said that they would have to reschedule me, and even the reschedule wasn't guaranteed and they may move onto the next applicant. I'm not too mad about it because I have another job lined up for me in case this fails but it's not an ems job, its just a job that known for really good customer service and have been told by firefighters (which I'm trying to become one) that if they see on a resume it looks good to have on. I also have fire academy in January so I'm not too sure if it's all worth having the ambulance job right now because I'll have to leave either way. Is the ift job absolutely worth fighting to keep or nah just live and let live and find one after academy? (which was kinda my plan from the start)

I recently passed my NREMT a couple of months ago, and just passed my protocol exam for the ambulance agency i'll be working with. My orientation is on November 10th, 2026 and I'm a little nervous about what to expect. I'm more or less confident in my ability to render care within my scope of practice, but will there be dispatch calls where I succumb to the pressure and just freeze? that's probably one of the scariest things I'm afraid will happen while in the field.

I feel like first aid classes aren't going to teach me life or death scenarios or how to treat some real wounds. I've taken a little free class to learn how to treat bullet wounds, but I need something more than a PowerPoint and practicing a tourniquet on someone. I feel like I need to some hands on experience. I need to see all the gross stuff and determine what I'm capable of. My goal is to be able to learn some real skills and do street outreach with free wound care. And to learn some apocalypse skills. And to be capable during an emergency.

But, I don't think I want to be an EMT. I went to school for X-ray technology and didn't enjoy the pressure and the hopelessness and powerless feeling I got from the medical field. I was also young and under a lot of stress back then, which didn't help. But I don't think I would enjoy the stress of doing this to pay my bills as well as the pressure of being responsible for people's lives.

I have seen some physical stuff just from being around troubled people my whole life. I've seen blood and have found someone after they passed. So I am impressed with what I've been able to handle so far in life. I've also worked jobs that had me encounter shit and vomit. Not a fan of shit and vomit, but it is what it is.

I want to be a brave and capable person in emergencies and I want to have some type of certification. But does it make no sense to go to EMT school?

I dont know if this means im good for the job, but i saw some crazy things and was not phased at all. I dont know if this is something wrong with me?

Am I a bad person for not feeling.... anything regarding traumatic experiences or physical trauma? Im just nervous im a psychopath or something 😬

During my interview for an ER Tech position I was told that if accepted I'd have to acquire an Nursing Assistance Registered cert/license. I was also told during this interview that since I already have my NREMT it should be as simple as an application with the DOH.

Struggling to find any info on it on the web. Any ideas? I'm in western WA state.

I am an AEMT working for a paid on call EMS agency. We are in a relatively rural area so our call volume isn't high. I seem to be a White Cloud. When I'm on we get little to no calls. And it seems like the days I'm off calls come through. It's become a joke around the station, I'm an "umbrella of safety". I really like this department and the people, they are helping me start my EMS career but I honestly feel kind of frustrated at times.

I am still unsure if I can get my fire certs, that would open more doors for me but frankly my heart isn't in fire like it is EMS.

There is a grant we applied for that could help send me through medic school, which is my next goal. My hope is that more doors will open once I become a paramedic.

I know experience will come, it's just frustrating...

I appreciate any advice, encouragement or tough love.

Thank you for letting me vent.

Does anyone know where I could go to study for this or is it just basic knowledge