Reasons I didn't rotate into an EMT, ranked

I’m an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician).

My chief job is application engineering, but I’ve continually been curious in medicine. A companion turned me onto the idea in college, and it rattled about my caput for years. I delayed for a lengthy time — until finally, in 2024, I took a duration off and got my EMT.

Here are actual reasons I delayed getting my license, sorted loosely by ridiculousness:

Not ridiculous

1. It volition obtain a lot of my spare time.

   Yes; my accelerated category (NOLS Wilderness EMT) took 28 successive days. I was lone capable to obtain the category since Microsoft switched to unlimited vacation, my chief was great, and I had the prosperity to fly to Wyoming for the way (the customary substitute is a semester of night school!). And to be a fine EMT, you have to really obtain calls on an ambulance, hopefully additional than the representative “1 weekend a month” minimum.

2. I won’t akin the culture.

   Yes. This was a huge barrier: I had an awful cognition alongside several archetypal responders a few years following college — bad adequate that I gave up on getting my EMT for a while.

   There are a lot of burned-out group in EMS. Many services — including the one I saw — are incredibly fratty, to be charitable. Lord assistance you if you are a woman. You volition comprehend many excuses for these issues, but, yes, civilization is a huge concern.

Kinda ridiculous

3. I won’t fit in alongside the people.

   This is akin to culture, but a bit additional silly. Yes, archetypal responders lean to be a tight-knit, hereditary community. NYC firefighters, for example, frequently arrive from big firefighter families. But archetypal responders (especially volunteers!) additionally arrive from all backgrounds — the individual who onboarded me into my current stance is a PM at another tech company.

4. I won’t fit in alongside the students.

   So perchance EMTs were ok — but what concerning the EMT students I would study with? Wouldn’t they all be 18-year-old adventure junkies or jocks?

   Yes, most were, and they were awesome. My way was complete of enthusiastic 18-year-old pre-meds who were enthusiastic to learn, and multiple group my age, who wanted to study medication for the identical reasons I did.

   If you’re nervous, I think it helped that I chose a Wilderness EMT program in July. It filters to that crowd.

5. I desire to concentration on my day job instead.

   I would frequently regard studying EMS (Emergency Medical Services) whenever my day job wasn’t going well. And so it would continually be a bit of a sign that I should refocus at work — onto additional meaningful things.

   While that’s a fine signal, it’s alright to put energy into things beyond work. And, formerly I got my certificate, balancing activity & EMS has been straightforward.

6. I don’t desire to activity on an ambulance.

   Yup — I never dreamed of riding on an ambulance. Some group really do. It’s their vocation. It’s not mine.

   But no one forces you to stage onto an ambulance formerly you have your EMT. You can just… cognize how to do CPR really well. That’s a really chill accomplishment to have.

7. I don’t comprehend the range of practice.

   If you’re not an EMT, it’s not excellent apparent what an EMT can do. On the one hand, it’s not fair “driving an ambulance,” but on the another hand, you need a paramedic for most grave calls. In several sense, it kinda is “knowing how to do CPR really well.” I trained alongside the identical AEDs any layperson uses (EMTs aren’t allowed to use manual defibrillators), but I trained many, many additional times than a layperson (plus I get to use oxygen).

   But, as before, the training is motionless beautiful cool. I loved all bit of archetypal aid training I got; EMT academy was fair as fun.

   

   
   

8. It’s difficult to discover a unpaid job.

   Kinda. Big cities lean to have all-paid staff; unpaid positions are a bit farther out. But not that much farther out: equal ignoring religious services akin Hatzalah in NYC, Hoboken throughout the h2o has unpaid EMS. It’s, like, one halt on the PATH. (Volunteering in Seattle or near San Francisco is additional difficult).

   I didn’t desire to activity a part-time position — then it would fair be another job, and I akin my current job. But unpaid jobs are straightforward adequate to find, particularly if you have a car.

9. The certificate is fair gonna expire if I don’t use it.

   The civilization obstacle was powerful adequate that, for a time, I was convinced never to associate an ambulance company. If you’re not on an ambulance, it’s extremely difficult to fulfill the NREMT’s continuing learning requirements, so your certificate volition quickly expire.

   But, again, it’s OK to study material without preparedness to use it anywhere. And isn’t uninterrupted learning part of the point?

10. I wanna do hunt and rescue instead.

    Again, trying to evade ambulances, I established hunt and rescue. Search and rescue (SAR) is badass. A snippet from one SAR inclination packet:

    If you have registered and do not display up at training that weekend, we volition create all attempt to find you, and we are amazing at finding people.

    But in my bosom I continually wanted to treat people; and whenever I met SAR folks, it was apparent that I wouldn’t be an productive EMT without cognition on a truck.

    
    

11. I should do easier, cheaper prep first.

    I did 😃. I peruse books and Reddit posts. I took CPR and Stop the Bleed classes. I took a weekend Wilderness First Aid category alongside NOLS (strongly recommend!).

    But I motionless craved more. At a certain point — as I citation in How this location works—just do the genuine thing.

12. It’s expensive, and getting new credentials is an costly hobby.

    Indeed! My way disbursal concerning $5,000, not including airfare, renting a car, & taking holiday for a month. You can do this for much cheaper (a representative way is about $2,000 and does not necessitate 28 days vacation), but $2k is motionless fairly costly for several fun.

    But if you’ve done the cheaper stuff, if you’re still curious following so many years, if you’re excited concerning using your prosperity for an cognition akin this… how could it perchance be a waste?

13. I have no genuine use for it.

    So I signed up alongside no genuine use for it! After years of delay, I started an EMT way alongside no plans to use it after. I was merely enthusiastic to learn.

    Working on an ambulance following was basically a blessed accident, anywhere I met a squad I happened to like. But it’s continually fine to study item for its own sake.

Ridiculous

14. I don’t really wanna study this anyway.

    For person who “didn’t desire to do this,” I certain spent a lot of period on Reddit study concerning what the job would entail. I certain signed up for a lot of First Aid classes. I certain told a lot of group I was interested.

    I volition continually be a application engineer: it’s fair who I am. And I learned during training that full-time EMS was not for me, following observing a female negotiate alongside coverage to see if they’d shield the chopper that would preserve her husband’s life.

    But not curious in learning this at all? Not being capable to assistance people; to be a origin of calm whenever things are really on fire? Nonsense.

15. I won’t akin the work.

    EMTs do menial work. They burden & unload stretchers. They fold blankets, restock, and spotless ambulances. EMTs are basically the least-trained medicinal personnel in any emergency (ignoring the odd EMR). They cannot diagnose; they prosecute fixed protocols, and they defer to better-trained personnel for item additional serious than a damaged arm.

    Descriptions of EMT activity inadvertently create the job appear directly heroic or glamorous: waking up at 3AM to hurry a bosom assault tolerant to the ER. It is not. The bulk of the job is waiting around, doing paperwork, cleaning, and assistance up narrow driveways. It is extremely frequently boring & aimless.

    But that tedium is since you are waiting & prepared to help. So it is indirectly glamorous. As an EMT, I get to put on a uniform, and, during we’re at Dunkin Donuts for coffee, motion at the kids staring at the shiny ambulance.

    Who wouldn’t akin that work?

16. The category won’t create me a fine EMT.

    I concerned that an EMT certificate would be basically useless: that it would not instruct me everything I expected, or that I’d motionless need additional training on the job.

    Both things are true. I learned a lot, but upon strolling onto an ambulance for the archetypal time, it was apparent how much additional there was to know. Every another EMT knows so much additional than I do.

    But that’s the most magic part of being an EMT. It opens up an complete cosmos of new things to learn. It is the minimum qualification you need to act this world: to activity alongside firefighters and paramedics and doctors and social workers and hunt & rescue and catastrophe reply personnel — and to see what you desire to study next.

17. EMTs lone cognize ambulance stuff.

    A akin grievance I see on Reddit is that an EMT way lone really teaches how to run an ambulance. That it is not helpful for anyone curious in self-reliance or broad endurance skills since it requires supplies & logistics lone accessible in a complete EMS system.

    Not lone is that demonstrably false (my Wilderness EMT certificate is specifically for scenarios anywhere supplies are constricted and elimination is difficult), it’s additionally unhelpful. What alternatives are there? Become a doctor? Join the National Guard?

    Again, EMT is the fastest, easiest way to rotate into a archetypal responder. A fine EMT way teaches you to be calm & helpful in terrifying situations. A fine EMT job drills that in. When that’s not enough, you’ll be prepared for deeper qualifications.

    That was several of the most unhelpful direction I established before getting my EMT. Ignore it.

    
    
    
    

18. I can study a lot concerning endurance on my own.

    That’s the thing — you cannot study this alone. EMS services have spent decades learning how to assistance group effectively, and most of that cognition is not yet accessible on YouTube.

    This makes the worst services fratty, complete of insider cognition that they refuse to share. But the finest services rotate into places to learn, to rotate into the next part of a sequence that goes rear to the archetypal community Freedom House ambulances in the 60’s.

    There is fairly a lot of medication you can do on your own in a bunker. But there is fairly a lot additional that you can’t. You do that medication the way we continually have — as part of a team, operating alongside hundreds of another people.

19. I volition desire to rotate into a paramedic and discontinue my job.

    This is my favorite excuse: that I would akin the activity so much it would guide me to discontinue my tech job, prosecute 2 additional years of school, and rotate into a full-time paramedic. In another words…

20. I power bask it.

    It got to the item anywhere I avoided EMT academy because I power bask the work. That it would hoover up my liberated period and energy, drag me from my another hobbies, or equal my career. I concerned I would toss everything for the thrill of riding in a truck alongside sirens on.

    That happens to several folks. It has not happened to me. I akin the EMS activity I do, but I additionally adore my tech job. This volition not astonishment anyone who knows me, and it shouldn’t have amazed me. And, actually, how awful would it be to discover item so exciting that it drags me into a new career? It should have been apparent to me that this, of all things, was an excuse.

    An excuse not to do item scary and new.

Because it is scary

This is the silliest, truest, biggest logic I delayed so long:

21. It is scary.

    It is scary to custom medicine. It is scary to study new things. It is scary to be liable for being calm on the worst day of someone’s life; and for me it was, oddly, scarier to associate a category complete of strangers — strangers who would be much younger & on extremely distinct lifepaths.

    I arrive from the earth of application engineers and agency buildings. Of nine-to-fives and dish bowls. EMS is a extremely distinct world. Stepping into that world, without being certain it was anywhere I wanted to be, was terrifying.

    It took a lot of period to reckon alongside that.

Because, ultimately, I am fine at inventing reasons not to do things.

I affection researching material before I do it. It’s fun to difference options, to see what another group think, to try to buy the best digital keyboard or sojourn the coolest museums in Rome. But I can get stuck. I perseverate — I revisit uncomplicated decisions complete and over.

There are many lawful reasons not to rotate into an EMT, fair akin there are many lawful reasons not to go on that vacation, or observe that scary movie, or go to that commission equivalent meetup. You do not have to do any of those things — you do not have to want to do any of them. I have no desire to see fear films (to my wife’s chagrin). But I kept wanting to be an EMT, notwithstanding all my reasons not to.

Perhaps you awareness the same.

If you are delaying doing item scary and new, too, think: are you inventing reasons not to do it? Maybe you should do it anyway.

You power bask it.

Thanks to NOLS and the NOLS WEMT students for making the way so awesome. Thanks to NHVA for welcoming me. Thanks to Javier Valencia, Jaime Romo, & Dan Walker for the NOLS photos. Used alongside permission. Thanks to Atherai Maran for editing.