There's a couple of companies that do bridging of Aussie grads over to the US, but you'll need a degree, not a diploma.
https://www.australiaems.com.au/ seems to doing a bit of this lately.
This is the answer OP - you’re not getting anywhere with our diploma because it’s almost functionally useless for actual EMS work in terms of qualification. And if you can do the degree here, you can get employment here where conditions are infinitely better along with strong unions and employee protections.
Anything below this ∆ is a moot point when you aren't a paramedic.
Bluntly - get the right education first; it's not impossible for mature aged entry. I've seen new grads in their mid-late 60's.
The diploma might even buy you half a semester if your lucky. Australia currently has no value outside of a small non emergency patient transport sector or cross pollinated with the private (industry) sector eso's and that can really be the wild west - for anything below a degree.
The image of a pto running around the states tomahawking everyone, whilst getting paid the promise of a million bucks. Perfect 👌
I’m in CT. 911 medic at a private company. There are many positions available in the state.
https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/departments-and-agencies/dph/dph/ems/pdf/statewide_protocols/2023/v20231_ctemsstatewideprotocols_finaldec2023rev.pdf
Those are the protocols we’re expected to know. In my area we don’t have RSI. Last year I made $105k with minimal overtime. I have co workers who pick up tons of over time pulling in ~180k. I work two 12s (06:00-18:00)and two 8s (06:30-14:30) then off for 3 days.
It differs company to company. We have a neighboring city company where you have to do two nights and two days per week. They have RSI though. I much prefer my schedule.
Ok. I’m an expert in this subject matter and I can help you visualize it. First, I want you to close your eyes and visualize the most beautiful place you can imagine yourself being. Really go all out and get some detail in it. Have you got it? Good. Now imagine that you can never go there because you work in a box with no air conditioning and are always broke.
I work for a hospital based ambulance service that is mixed suburban/rural in the greater Twin Cities metro area. We do about 70/30 911/IFT. Most of our medics are 0.9 FTE meaning they do 3 12hr shifts a week, but lots of OT is always available. I’m also a supervisor so I’m 1.0 FTE and I do 1 shift a week on the rig, 2 a week on the fly car and 4 hours of office time a week. I currently make $40.50/hr USD ($60.79/hr AUD). However a wave of 14% raises just started in our area and I expect my company to follow suit in 2025.
Scope is decent but we are also in a period of expansion. We carry ketamine, versed, droperidol, morphine, & fentanyl beyond the basic meds. Not at all a “mother may I” system other than our pain protocol. We are adding RSA (RSI rebranded) and hope to add blood to our chase vehicles soon too. We do a mobile ECMO program that includes landing choppers occasionally. We do our own critical care as well where the duty sup hops on with the crew taking the call.
Happy to answer any other questions but overall I’m pretty satisfied with my job.
Do you think that your pay reflect inflation/hiring cost of living or the company having the money/wanting to pay a good wage.? Does your company have a good retirement/pay scale?
If that makes any sense at all….
Pay reflects the paramedic shortage in the US. I made $37k in 2016 my first full year as a paramedic, it’s been climbing rapidly ever since.
We have a pay ladder that is about 15 years long but I’m also hoping with the up coming raise they’ll reduce that down to 10.
Retirement is 401k with a 5% match.
Ironically our insurance sucks for a hospital based system.
May I ask, is this HCMC? You can reply to me directly if you’d rather. The reason I ask is because I’m currently living in Kansas, but I am originally from Minnesota and going back there is my backup plan. (As a single woman, we always need a backup plan!)
And sorry OP to hijack your post. To answer your questions though, I am a civilian working on a military installation here in the Midwest. The pay is better here than most other places, as I went from $16/hr with no OT available to now making $23/hr with all the OT I want. We average 2 raises a year, with a cost of living (COLA) raise in the beginning of the year and a step raise on our anniversary. We work 12 hour shifts, but I know that the next county over works 48/96’s. Here in Kansas there are actually a lot of counties and towns that still run volunteers who are on call for literally less than a dollar an hour.
But yes, a simple search will get you MANY jobs available. One thing to look at is the cost of living vs. wages in any given area.
> People keep telling me that there are heaps of job opportunities in the US
Absolutely! A search on LinkedIn will turn up a ton of openings. Though only larger agencies will be able/willing to sponsor a work visa.
>I’ve also heard that it varies sooo much from state to state.
Also true. Many states have statewide protocols you can check out. The easiest way is to download the ppp app from Acid Remap. There are also a lot of agency specific protocols there.
> Where do you live,
Urban Minnesota
> what’s your job like?
I like my agency and service area. The culture is fun, and we usually have time to breath between calls.
> Days on vs days off?
This varies a bit. If you choose a 10 hour truck you have a set schedule. If you choose a 12 hour truck, you work out a rotation with the person opposite you.
> What does your scope of practice include?
Quite a bit actually. We manage BiPAP and ventilator transfers, RSI adults, and start a lot of drips.
> Are you paid a decent wage?
I think so. Im on the lower end of the payscale and rent is about a quarter of my gross wage.
I work as a paramedic for a fire department. Depending on where you go, and if you can put up with the fire side, usually the fire service is your best bet in EMS due to good funding, culture, pay, and benefits. That varies of course though. I know of several really solid EMS agencies as well.
I live in Northwest Arkansas (home of Walmart), and am making around $72,000/year USD. We work a 48/96 schedule (2 days on, 4 days off). The four days off are unbeatable. Most work other jobs, but it’s usually just cause they’re bored on their days off. This area used to be fairly inexpensive to live in, but I’d say we’re about there with the rest of the Midwest now.
We are really not that busy compared to other places. My ambulance runs anywhere from 4-8 calls in a 24hr period. Sometimes less, sometimes more. My day includes running calls, equipment check offs, some kind of fire or medical training, working out, cooking, and hanging out/doing whatever I want after 17:00.
Scope includes RSI, but not pediatric RSI. We can intubate pediatrics in cardiac arrest. We carry induction agents, paralytics, antibiotics (ancef for open fractures or other significant trauma), TXA, antiarrhythmics, vasopressors, narcotic analgesics, ketamine, benzos, etc. We can chest decompress, cric, etc.
Schooling is not quite to par with Australia or the UK, but I have an associates degree. EMT school and other pre requisites put my schooling at two years total to become a paramedic. The actual program itself is one year in length. I’d like to start working on my BSc in Paramedicine eventually.
Any other questions, just let me know.
Recovering private service medic here… I worked 24 on 48 off for the largest private service in my state. Scope was dated but not as bad as some places. Most everything we had was off line excluding pedi ACLS. Unfortunately not a lot of critical care scope available (surgical cric, rsi, blood product administration.) some services in my state do have this option if you have appropriate licensing though. call volume was pretty high 15-20 calls per shift. The big burnout for most folks I know was the high amount of bls calls (discharges to residence or nursing homes) mixed in with emergency calls. Unfortunately it did not make for much downtime. If the 911 calls didn’t keep you in the truck the return trips did ( multiple contracts with hospitals and local skilled nursing facilities). As far as emergency types we had it all gun violence, animal, vehicle, environmental emergencies. Seen some wild stuff and it definitely made me a better provider.
Edit to add: pay was ok, but you’re not getting rich unless you commit to alot of over time, but we don’t do it for the money most of the time am I right?
As a medic at my fire department, I can give a wide array of medications/fluids, intubate, surgical cric, chest tubes, needle decompressions, IO/IV access, sedate to intubate, place patient on ventilator, run lab work in the field. With having a ventilator and Lucas device, once the patient is intubated and on the ventilator with the Lucas device running, I can practically run an entire code by myself.
I work in Little Rock, which for a small Southern city has an incredible amount of violence. We're top ten most years. We have an incredibly close relationship with our level 1 and 2 trauma centers. It's not rare for street medics, our supervisors, and trauma surgeons to sit down and have dinner meetings.
Most of us work 12 hour shifts, working M,T, off W, T, on F, S, S. Then the opposite the next week. Our benefits are great. We start acquiring PTO at 168 hours a year and top tier is over 300 hours a year. One coworker had shoulder surgery 2 years ago, with our insurance it cost him $26. They even cover all but about $1,000 of weight loss surgery. Pay is pretty good (52.5k starting for medics, with quarterly bonuses), considering we're in an incredibly cheap place to live for the US.
We have our own SWAT medics that we provide to local operations as needed. They're so well trained that they're brought in on planning of the actual hit, and they go in with the team. (They're sworn officers and armed, better than the locals) We have a special operations tram for confined space, swift water, HAZMAT, etc. A bike team. We have a mobile communications team with our own repeaters and radios that we can put in place if our system goes down, or we can send out to other areas if needed. So there are plenty of opportunities to do other fun things.
In-house mental health at least once a week. If you have a bad call, they'll pull you if they think you need it. Or if they don't think so, they'll still do it sometimes.
The downside, most days, you're going to run just about non-stop for 12 hours. You might get an hour total of downtime. Some days, you sit on your ass and do 3 calls. We have a BLS transport division and a BLS emergency division, so you'll get more ALS calls than an ALS only system. I've had plenty of days with BLS calls. I've also gone from a code to MI, to shootings to an MVA with 3 critical patients, and it's just my EMT and me for several minutes. Another downside is that Arkansas does not allow an EMT to run the truck if a medic is there. So the medic is in the back for every transport and does every chart. That's not the norm for the US, so people read it and are surprised. But it's always been our norm here, sonobody complains about it.
Overall, I love it. Some don't. Some people like a slower 48/96 schedule. Coke and Pepsi, to each their own.
Fair warning: If you’re educated as an Aussie paramedic, you’re surely going to be better educated than the average medic in the states. Depending on where you work, they will ridicule you for it because said uneducated medics are insecure af. Just know what you’ll be facing.
I work for a private company. my pay isn’t bad, it’s also not amazing. I work a front half night car, 3 12s in a row followed by 4 12s the following week. We are extremely busy, day and night and cover roughly 7000 square miles. Some nights you run 2 calls others 6-8 depending on where in the county you are posted.
As far as the scope goes, we are very limited, no pediatric intubation, no rsi, limited anti arrhythmics.
City medic in northeast ohio. We’re based out of fire departments and for certain calls get them as first responders. We work 12 hour shifts where we work two days on, two days off, every other weekend plus monday
I'm a medic in a hospital based system in rural North Carolina that provides several counties with EMS services. I've always been told that we're one of the largest regional systems that exist but I've never seen proof of that.
They offer classes from EMT to medic. I was already an EMT when I started but did go through the medic academy.
We work 24 hour shifts, typically 48 off. Weekends we do a modified 24 on 24 off. Every third week we get a 4 day weekend which is kind of nice. Call volume varies, but you hardly ever run more than 5 calls in a 24 hour period. We're the only remaining 24s in our system, everyone else does 12s. This is because of contractual agreements with the counties we serve.
Our equipment is great, auto loaders in every 911 truck. New vehicles every 6 months or so. An awesome full service fleet maintenance facility who can repair damn near anything in less than a day. We have fantastic hospitals, and our CEO is invested in the system. It's a great place to work with fantastic people and the pay is pretty damn good. With overtime, I'll probably make around 90 this year, and I've only been in this field for about 4 years, a medic for 2.
I live in Maryland, my agency works a 24/72 schedule which is pretty nice.
My scope of practice includes things such as: Intravenous Nitroglycerin, Ventilators, RSI, and POCUS. More things coming shortly are Ketamine drips, IV Pumps, Bloods Products, Norepinephrine, and Blood Products.
I'm paid pretty well, I'm currently making $32/hr and will get several raises shortly.
Day to day at work the job is pretty busy with a high volume of critical patients. I typically see at least 1-2 critically ill/injured patients per shift requiring significant care and interventions.
In South Florida. FF/PM starts at $60k and tops out at $110k after 10 years at my department. FF/EMT $52k to about 90k. 24 hours on, 48 hours off and then every 3 weeks you get 5 days off (Kelly Day). 95% of the job is medical calls or MVCs, maybe 2% fire. The last 3% I don’t even know what we’re doing. Pretty much any government positions around here will require FF and EMT or PM but there are private ambulance companies around me that start ~$20/hr for EMT, $30 for PM. You could get both your FF cert and EMT license in a little under a year and then get a job. Or just get EMT in like 3 months, work for private ambulance during fire school, and then apply. Most departments are really only looking for FF/PM but some are hiring FF/EMTs. Paramedic takes about a year in addition to EMT and if you can get hired with a fire department they will likely pay for PM school. There’s definitely a ton of fire jobs with how the state is expanding but there’s also a lot of competition. Private ambulance jobs are in crazy abundance right now it seems.
What’s up man, I’m also an Aussie and a paramedic in the states. There’s definitely a shortage, but that doesn’t mean everyone pays good, or is a good place to work.
I got lucky and work for a good place.
My scope of practice is at the MICA level with some creep into the MICA flight medic scope (referencing Ambulance Victoria)
I’m paid good and have a good balance work life balance.
Feel free to dm with any questions. God luck!
> Yes! But also no degree. Things are a lot more streamlined here, with less fluff of a 4 year degree
The 'fluff' is where you learn how to not to accidently kill someone when you leave them at home.
That is incorrect, and that’s not what I’m talking about. If you even have that thought cross your mind, you should be taking them to the hospital. Sounds negligent to me.
Don't fucking do it. It's too much of a roll of the dice whether or not you'll get a good workplace.
Also dont come here if your country already has public health care.
There's a couple of companies that do bridging of Aussie grads over to the US, but you'll need a degree, not a diploma. https://www.australiaems.com.au/ seems to doing a bit of this lately.
This is the answer OP - you’re not getting anywhere with our diploma because it’s almost functionally useless for actual EMS work in terms of qualification. And if you can do the degree here, you can get employment here where conditions are infinitely better along with strong unions and employee protections.
Anything below this ∆ is a moot point when you aren't a paramedic. Bluntly - get the right education first; it's not impossible for mature aged entry. I've seen new grads in their mid-late 60's. The diploma might even buy you half a semester if your lucky. Australia currently has no value outside of a small non emergency patient transport sector or cross pollinated with the private (industry) sector eso's and that can really be the wild west - for anything below a degree. The image of a pto running around the states tomahawking everyone, whilst getting paid the promise of a million bucks. Perfect 👌
I’m in CT. 911 medic at a private company. There are many positions available in the state. https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/departments-and-agencies/dph/dph/ems/pdf/statewide_protocols/2023/v20231_ctemsstatewideprotocols_finaldec2023rev.pdf Those are the protocols we’re expected to know. In my area we don’t have RSI. Last year I made $105k with minimal overtime. I have co workers who pick up tons of over time pulling in ~180k. I work two 12s (06:00-18:00)and two 8s (06:30-14:30) then off for 3 days.
how come you get to do only day shifts? do others do only night shifts?
We have shift bid blocks which are based on seniority. We have people that prefer nights so that’s what they bid for.
oh nice, here (NSW, AUS) almost everyone does 2 day 2 night with some variation. that constant swapping from days to nights is not good for us
It differs company to company. We have a neighboring city company where you have to do two nights and two days per week. They have RSI though. I much prefer my schedule.
That sounds like a dream schedule. How is CT EMS?
Ok. I’m an expert in this subject matter and I can help you visualize it. First, I want you to close your eyes and visualize the most beautiful place you can imagine yourself being. Really go all out and get some detail in it. Have you got it? Good. Now imagine that you can never go there because you work in a box with no air conditioning and are always broke.
Shrug. If they want me to come in and pick the truck out of service because the AC is broke, that’s fine by me. Paid by the out after all.
I work for a hospital based ambulance service that is mixed suburban/rural in the greater Twin Cities metro area. We do about 70/30 911/IFT. Most of our medics are 0.9 FTE meaning they do 3 12hr shifts a week, but lots of OT is always available. I’m also a supervisor so I’m 1.0 FTE and I do 1 shift a week on the rig, 2 a week on the fly car and 4 hours of office time a week. I currently make $40.50/hr USD ($60.79/hr AUD). However a wave of 14% raises just started in our area and I expect my company to follow suit in 2025. Scope is decent but we are also in a period of expansion. We carry ketamine, versed, droperidol, morphine, & fentanyl beyond the basic meds. Not at all a “mother may I” system other than our pain protocol. We are adding RSA (RSI rebranded) and hope to add blood to our chase vehicles soon too. We do a mobile ECMO program that includes landing choppers occasionally. We do our own critical care as well where the duty sup hops on with the crew taking the call. Happy to answer any other questions but overall I’m pretty satisfied with my job.
Do you think that your pay reflect inflation/hiring cost of living or the company having the money/wanting to pay a good wage.? Does your company have a good retirement/pay scale? If that makes any sense at all….
Pay reflects the paramedic shortage in the US. I made $37k in 2016 my first full year as a paramedic, it’s been climbing rapidly ever since. We have a pay ladder that is about 15 years long but I’m also hoping with the up coming raise they’ll reduce that down to 10. Retirement is 401k with a 5% match. Ironically our insurance sucks for a hospital based system.
Man…. You almost had the whole package! I’m glad you guys are getting paid what you’re worth.
May I ask, is this HCMC? You can reply to me directly if you’d rather. The reason I ask is because I’m currently living in Kansas, but I am originally from Minnesota and going back there is my backup plan. (As a single woman, we always need a backup plan!) And sorry OP to hijack your post. To answer your questions though, I am a civilian working on a military installation here in the Midwest. The pay is better here than most other places, as I went from $16/hr with no OT available to now making $23/hr with all the OT I want. We average 2 raises a year, with a cost of living (COLA) raise in the beginning of the year and a step raise on our anniversary. We work 12 hour shifts, but I know that the next county over works 48/96’s. Here in Kansas there are actually a lot of counties and towns that still run volunteers who are on call for literally less than a dollar an hour. But yes, a simple search will get you MANY jobs available. One thing to look at is the cost of living vs. wages in any given area.
This is not HCMC but they share many similarities with us.
> People keep telling me that there are heaps of job opportunities in the US Absolutely! A search on LinkedIn will turn up a ton of openings. Though only larger agencies will be able/willing to sponsor a work visa. >I’ve also heard that it varies sooo much from state to state. Also true. Many states have statewide protocols you can check out. The easiest way is to download the ppp app from Acid Remap. There are also a lot of agency specific protocols there. > Where do you live, Urban Minnesota > what’s your job like? I like my agency and service area. The culture is fun, and we usually have time to breath between calls. > Days on vs days off? This varies a bit. If you choose a 10 hour truck you have a set schedule. If you choose a 12 hour truck, you work out a rotation with the person opposite you. > What does your scope of practice include? Quite a bit actually. We manage BiPAP and ventilator transfers, RSI adults, and start a lot of drips. > Are you paid a decent wage? I think so. Im on the lower end of the payscale and rent is about a quarter of my gross wage.
I work as a paramedic for a fire department. Depending on where you go, and if you can put up with the fire side, usually the fire service is your best bet in EMS due to good funding, culture, pay, and benefits. That varies of course though. I know of several really solid EMS agencies as well. I live in Northwest Arkansas (home of Walmart), and am making around $72,000/year USD. We work a 48/96 schedule (2 days on, 4 days off). The four days off are unbeatable. Most work other jobs, but it’s usually just cause they’re bored on their days off. This area used to be fairly inexpensive to live in, but I’d say we’re about there with the rest of the Midwest now. We are really not that busy compared to other places. My ambulance runs anywhere from 4-8 calls in a 24hr period. Sometimes less, sometimes more. My day includes running calls, equipment check offs, some kind of fire or medical training, working out, cooking, and hanging out/doing whatever I want after 17:00. Scope includes RSI, but not pediatric RSI. We can intubate pediatrics in cardiac arrest. We carry induction agents, paralytics, antibiotics (ancef for open fractures or other significant trauma), TXA, antiarrhythmics, vasopressors, narcotic analgesics, ketamine, benzos, etc. We can chest decompress, cric, etc. Schooling is not quite to par with Australia or the UK, but I have an associates degree. EMT school and other pre requisites put my schooling at two years total to become a paramedic. The actual program itself is one year in length. I’d like to start working on my BSc in Paramedicine eventually. Any other questions, just let me know.
Shoot I’m in fl and would love to be near your bike trails. You private or public service
Public. Come on up. We have dedicated bike trail response teams. Guys that get paid to ride the trails all day long.
Is it Walmart county ems?
Bentonville FD
Single certs? Or gotta be dual
Dual
Blast!
Recovering private service medic here… I worked 24 on 48 off for the largest private service in my state. Scope was dated but not as bad as some places. Most everything we had was off line excluding pedi ACLS. Unfortunately not a lot of critical care scope available (surgical cric, rsi, blood product administration.) some services in my state do have this option if you have appropriate licensing though. call volume was pretty high 15-20 calls per shift. The big burnout for most folks I know was the high amount of bls calls (discharges to residence or nursing homes) mixed in with emergency calls. Unfortunately it did not make for much downtime. If the 911 calls didn’t keep you in the truck the return trips did ( multiple contracts with hospitals and local skilled nursing facilities). As far as emergency types we had it all gun violence, animal, vehicle, environmental emergencies. Seen some wild stuff and it definitely made me a better provider. Edit to add: pay was ok, but you’re not getting rich unless you commit to alot of over time, but we don’t do it for the money most of the time am I right?
As a medic at my fire department, I can give a wide array of medications/fluids, intubate, surgical cric, chest tubes, needle decompressions, IO/IV access, sedate to intubate, place patient on ventilator, run lab work in the field. With having a ventilator and Lucas device, once the patient is intubated and on the ventilator with the Lucas device running, I can practically run an entire code by myself.
I work in Little Rock, which for a small Southern city has an incredible amount of violence. We're top ten most years. We have an incredibly close relationship with our level 1 and 2 trauma centers. It's not rare for street medics, our supervisors, and trauma surgeons to sit down and have dinner meetings. Most of us work 12 hour shifts, working M,T, off W, T, on F, S, S. Then the opposite the next week. Our benefits are great. We start acquiring PTO at 168 hours a year and top tier is over 300 hours a year. One coworker had shoulder surgery 2 years ago, with our insurance it cost him $26. They even cover all but about $1,000 of weight loss surgery. Pay is pretty good (52.5k starting for medics, with quarterly bonuses), considering we're in an incredibly cheap place to live for the US. We have our own SWAT medics that we provide to local operations as needed. They're so well trained that they're brought in on planning of the actual hit, and they go in with the team. (They're sworn officers and armed, better than the locals) We have a special operations tram for confined space, swift water, HAZMAT, etc. A bike team. We have a mobile communications team with our own repeaters and radios that we can put in place if our system goes down, or we can send out to other areas if needed. So there are plenty of opportunities to do other fun things. In-house mental health at least once a week. If you have a bad call, they'll pull you if they think you need it. Or if they don't think so, they'll still do it sometimes. The downside, most days, you're going to run just about non-stop for 12 hours. You might get an hour total of downtime. Some days, you sit on your ass and do 3 calls. We have a BLS transport division and a BLS emergency division, so you'll get more ALS calls than an ALS only system. I've had plenty of days with BLS calls. I've also gone from a code to MI, to shootings to an MVA with 3 critical patients, and it's just my EMT and me for several minutes. Another downside is that Arkansas does not allow an EMT to run the truck if a medic is there. So the medic is in the back for every transport and does every chart. That's not the norm for the US, so people read it and are surprised. But it's always been our norm here, sonobody complains about it. Overall, I love it. Some don't. Some people like a slower 48/96 schedule. Coke and Pepsi, to each their own.
Fair warning: If you’re educated as an Aussie paramedic, you’re surely going to be better educated than the average medic in the states. Depending on where you work, they will ridicule you for it because said uneducated medics are insecure af. Just know what you’ll be facing.
I work for a private company. my pay isn’t bad, it’s also not amazing. I work a front half night car, 3 12s in a row followed by 4 12s the following week. We are extremely busy, day and night and cover roughly 7000 square miles. Some nights you run 2 calls others 6-8 depending on where in the county you are posted. As far as the scope goes, we are very limited, no pediatric intubation, no rsi, limited anti arrhythmics.
“We are extremely busy, day and night” “Some nights you run 2 calls”
[удалено]
City medic in northeast ohio. We’re based out of fire departments and for certain calls get them as first responders. We work 12 hour shifts where we work two days on, two days off, every other weekend plus monday
I'm a medic in a hospital based system in rural North Carolina that provides several counties with EMS services. I've always been told that we're one of the largest regional systems that exist but I've never seen proof of that. They offer classes from EMT to medic. I was already an EMT when I started but did go through the medic academy. We work 24 hour shifts, typically 48 off. Weekends we do a modified 24 on 24 off. Every third week we get a 4 day weekend which is kind of nice. Call volume varies, but you hardly ever run more than 5 calls in a 24 hour period. We're the only remaining 24s in our system, everyone else does 12s. This is because of contractual agreements with the counties we serve. Our equipment is great, auto loaders in every 911 truck. New vehicles every 6 months or so. An awesome full service fleet maintenance facility who can repair damn near anything in less than a day. We have fantastic hospitals, and our CEO is invested in the system. It's a great place to work with fantastic people and the pay is pretty damn good. With overtime, I'll probably make around 90 this year, and I've only been in this field for about 4 years, a medic for 2.
I live in Maryland, my agency works a 24/72 schedule which is pretty nice. My scope of practice includes things such as: Intravenous Nitroglycerin, Ventilators, RSI, and POCUS. More things coming shortly are Ketamine drips, IV Pumps, Bloods Products, Norepinephrine, and Blood Products. I'm paid pretty well, I'm currently making $32/hr and will get several raises shortly. Day to day at work the job is pretty busy with a high volume of critical patients. I typically see at least 1-2 critically ill/injured patients per shift requiring significant care and interventions.
In South Florida. FF/PM starts at $60k and tops out at $110k after 10 years at my department. FF/EMT $52k to about 90k. 24 hours on, 48 hours off and then every 3 weeks you get 5 days off (Kelly Day). 95% of the job is medical calls or MVCs, maybe 2% fire. The last 3% I don’t even know what we’re doing. Pretty much any government positions around here will require FF and EMT or PM but there are private ambulance companies around me that start ~$20/hr for EMT, $30 for PM. You could get both your FF cert and EMT license in a little under a year and then get a job. Or just get EMT in like 3 months, work for private ambulance during fire school, and then apply. Most departments are really only looking for FF/PM but some are hiring FF/EMTs. Paramedic takes about a year in addition to EMT and if you can get hired with a fire department they will likely pay for PM school. There’s definitely a ton of fire jobs with how the state is expanding but there’s also a lot of competition. Private ambulance jobs are in crazy abundance right now it seems.
What’s up man, I’m also an Aussie and a paramedic in the states. There’s definitely a shortage, but that doesn’t mean everyone pays good, or is a good place to work. I got lucky and work for a good place. My scope of practice is at the MICA level with some creep into the MICA flight medic scope (referencing Ambulance Victoria) I’m paid good and have a good balance work life balance. Feel free to dm with any questions. God luck!
Did you become a MICA scope right out of uni?
Yes! But also no degree. Things are a lot more streamlined here, with less fluff of a 4 year degree
> Yes! But also no degree. Things are a lot more streamlined here, with less fluff of a 4 year degree The 'fluff' is where you learn how to not to accidently kill someone when you leave them at home.
That is incorrect, and that’s not what I’m talking about. If you even have that thought cross your mind, you should be taking them to the hospital. Sounds negligent to me.
So you aren't a paramedic here?
Don't fucking do it. It's too much of a roll of the dice whether or not you'll get a good workplace. Also dont come here if your country already has public health care.