Thinking about breaking up my schedule some. Thoughts?

[TheLastStone]

Being a full-time EMT in a huge metro area that runs all ALS trucks in a 911 only service is tough. It's even tougher because it is infact only full-time. With that being said, I am curious as to what others did as they were finishing their pre-reqs. Would you work three 12's a week and still commit to 12-16 credits of bio/chem/ap and labs, or would you break the schedule up some? 

I do want to finish up sooner than later, and I want to show that I can handle a heavy course load and prepare myself for the difficulty of PA school, but I also don't want to shoot myself in the foot and end up doing poorly because of lack of sleep, study time, etc.

Thoughts? How will AdComs see this? 

Also.. Happy PA week! I may just be a student and an EMT but I follow really closely! Today is the first graduating class of PAs back in 1967. Pretty awesome. 

[UGoLong]

It is difficult, but not impossible, to work full time and go to school for your prereqs. Rule one is to do well in school, so don't overload yourself and put your grades at risk.

Being an EMT is a great way to get HCE. I have always worked part-time at it (still do, nearly 12 years after becoming a PA) and many of our full-timers have gone on to school, often as RNs. Working unit days (24 on and 48 off) can be a problem, unless a class is on-line or they can arrange to swap shifts (or part of the shift) on class days, which is generally what they do.

As I said, rushing through lots of prereqs while working and putting your grades at risk is not a recipe for success.

Good luck.

[Guest HanSolo]

What will be your role as a BLS provider on the ALS truck? You don't want to get stuck in the drivers seat. 

[majetito]

Pace yourself. 

I have worked 40 hrs a week while taking 2 prerequisites a semester. I, like you, wanted to get out there "sooner rather than later." But waiting an extra year to finish will only make you more mature, give you more HCE, more time to save $,etc. 

If you think you can honestly pull it off...go for it. But as mentioned above, the prerequisites aren't just about finishing and getting a grade...it's about comprehension in order to prepare you for the subject matter of PA school.

Good luck in whatever you choose.

[TheLastStone]

8 hours ago, HanSolo said:

What will be your role as a BLS provider on the ALS truck? You don't want to get stuck in the drivers seat. 

If it's a a BLS call (and not a child that could deteriorate quickly) the paramedic gives the EMT full-reign and does not intervene unless things start to crash. It's usually a switch-off on every call unless there's an absolute ALS intervention needed right away. I've had calls where we've got ROSC after CA and I was in the back with a firefighter and the paramedic drove. I did ventilations, titrated the IO that was in place and kept an eye on the monitor while the firefighter was there incase we to do compressions again. 

Fire usually get to a lot of calls before we do, depending on where we're stationed. So, by the time we show up if it's a patient in resp distress they've already been administered a drug or have a king put in if they're not conscious and meet the criteria, so I can control that. We have a huge opioid problem here because of the int'l airport right next to us, so we narcan pts very often. We do basically everything in our SOP. Since it's such a big city, we have a huge agency and abundnace of trucks and nearly 500 EMS employees (not including fire dept) and we're close to every hospital, patients RARELY get intubated or have any kind of surgical interventions that are done with the more rural agencies on the outskirts of our city. 

I was offered a position as an ER tech which I've thought about because they would be willing to work with my hours, and it'd show adcoms I'm around not just pre-hopsital care teams, which could help me connect. I'm kind of torn because of this offer coming up. I love EMS, but with the really tough sciences coming up I'm not sure it's worth me taking that kind of risk. Would it be foolish to not take the ER position?

[TheLastStone]

8 hours ago, majetito said:

Pace yourself. 

I have worked 40 hrs a week while taking 2 prerequisites a semester. I, like you, wanted to get out there "sooner rather than later." But waiting an extra year to finish will only make you more mature, give you more HCE, more time to save $,etc. 

If you think you can honestly pull it off...go for it. But as mentioned above, the prerequisites aren't just about finishing and getting a grade...it's about comprehension in order to prepare you for the subject matter of PA school.

Good luck in whatever you choose.

I'm not apprehensive of taking longer to finish by having less classes/semester. I'm just curious how PA schools will see it if I take less than full time classes and working, rather than taking full time and working. I don't want that to be held against me. 

 

[TheLastStone]

13 hours ago, UGoLong said:

It is difficult, but not impossible, to work full time and go to school for your prereqs. Rule one is to do well in school, so don't overload yourself and put your grades at risk.

Being an EMT is a great way to get HCE. I have always worked part-time at it (still do, nearly 12 years after becoming a PA) and many of our full-timers have gone on to school, often as RNs. Working unit days (24 on and 48 off) can be a problem, unless a class is on-line or they can arrange to swap shifts (or part of the shift) on class days, which is generally what they do.

As I said, rushing through lots of prereqs while working and putting your grades at risk is not a recipe for success.

Good luck.

I would love to work part time but my agency is a full-time only service unfortunately. Interesting that they went on to school as RNs. Have you ever asked why they did that and not considered the PA route? Nursing is a very respectful career choice and I have nothing against it. I've some of the toughest soldiers I know go into nursing and are proud of it. I love that. I'm just curious why they chose that over a higher position, but that's none of my business. Plus, NPs can do a lot that PAs do... to an extent. I just prefer the breadth of knowledge, medically that PAs have over the nurses. That's pretty much where I differentiate the two. I don't want to give the pretense that I'm discounting NPs... I just feel better with a PA because of the education. Two different systems of learning, though.

[UGoLong]

2 hours ago, TheLastStone said:

I would love to work part time but my agency is a full-time only service unfortunately. Interesting that they went on to school as RNs. Have you ever asked why they did that and not considered the PA route? Nursing is a very respectful career choice and I have nothing against it. I've some of the toughest soldiers I know go into nursing and are proud of it. I love that. I'm just curious why they chose that over a higher position, but that's none of my business. Plus, NPs can do a lot that PAs do... to an extent. I just prefer the breadth of knowledge, medically that PAs have over the nurses. That's pretty much where I differentiate the two. I don't want to give the pretense that I'm discounting NPs... I just feel better with a PA because of the education. Two different systems of learning, though.

I was not saying that full-timers went part-time in our service to finish school; they just worked it out with their buddies to swap shifts (or often just 3-6 hours) so they could go to take a class. Being on 24 and off 48 isn't conducive to going to a class that meets every Monday and Wednesday, for example, so they worked out these trades.

Many of them didn't have bachelor degrees and so they became RNs, often through local associate degree programs. They then gravitated to ED work and then got BSN degrees, which are available on-line. One has since gone full-time as a nurse in a cath lab and is now getting her masters to become an NP.

I have also known full-time firefighter/paramedics who became PAs, often first getting their BS part-time. It can be a long haul. As a PA, I value a PA education. I also work with NPs who I respect, after they get enough experience post-degree to make up for their more limited clinical training.

The point of all of this is that you can work full-time as an EMT and get your degree and/or prerequisites. You just need (a) a department that allows you to work trades and (b) friends willing to do that for you.

[TheLastStone]

7 minutes ago, UGoLong said:

I was not saying that full-timers went part-time in our service to finish school; they just worked it out with their buddies to swap shifts (or often just 3-6 hours) so they could go to take a class. Being on 24 and off 48 isn't conducive to going to a class that meets every Monday and Wednesday, for example, so they worked out these trades.

Many of them didn't have bachelor degrees and so they became RNs, often through local associate degree programs. They then gravitated to ED work and then got BSN degrees, which are available on-line. One has since gone full-time as a nurse in a cath lab and is now getting her masters to become an NP.

I have also known full-time firefighter/paramedics who became PAs, often first getting their BS part-time. It can be a long haul. As a PA, I value a PA education. I also work with NPs who I respect, after they get enough experience post-degree to make up for their more limited clinical training.

The point of all of this is that you can work full-time as an EMT and get your degree and/or prerequisites. You just need (a) a department that allows you to work trades and (b) friends willing to do that for you.

I understand what you're saying now. Yea, it's tough because we have 500+ employees and you bid for your shifts, so it's fair. You're either stuck on A or B. I've decided to just space it out, though. It's one more year. Big deal. I'll only be a stronger applicant with the more hours and more time to focus on classes since I won't be stretching myself so thin. Seems like a wise thing for me to do. I appreciate you input as always

[majetito]

3 hours ago, TheLastStone said:

I'm not apprehensive of taking longer to finish by having less classes/semester. I'm just curious how PA schools will see it if I take less than full time classes and working, rather than taking full time and working. I don't want that to be held against me. 

 

You do you.

Everyone's path to get to PA school or the interview is different. I seriously doubt they would question your work ethic for taking less classes. 

[TheLastStone]

7 minutes ago, majetito said:

You do you.

Everyone's path to get to PA school or the interview is different. I seriously doubt they would question your work ethic for taking less classes. 

Thanks for the encouragement! I don't think so either, but the reassurance helps! I'd rather take an extra year and be stronger and retain the info more, than become a reapplicant or confused in PA school because I just ran through material for a grade and not the understanding. Happy PA week y'all!

[Guest HanSolo]

I worked EMS while taking prerequisites but it was not in an urban area. We were busy, but there was also enough downtime to get some studying in. Any studying I got done at the station I considered bonus time, anyway, and it wasn't budgeted into my normal study schedule. That way if I wasn't able to get work done I wasn't counting on that time to learn material. What threw me off the most was when I was working nights. It wasn't the busy evenings that were bad - it was the pseudo busy ones where you'd get a call...return to quarters...almost fall asleep again...get a call...repeat. That tended to happen quite often haha. With ER tech, even if working nights, you'd have an expectation of being up and around lots of other people which in itself can be energizing. Also, as a tech you'd be in the hospital, and PAs are, of course, in the hospital and generally not out doing pre-hospital work (with a few rare exceptions). You'd get a better idea of what goes on and the roles of different providers in your ED. However, you would have zero and I mean zero legal decision making capabilities. At least with EMS your decisions matter and you have the legal authority to manage a patient. Just some ideas here. Both are good experience and you'll learn a lot. My vote is for EMS but perhaps I'm biased. I really liked being out in the community.

Good to hear you'd get some time in seeing more critical patients as a BLS provider in your area. At some point you might want to also consider bumping up to an ALS provider like EMT-I or A-EMT. It's a step above EMT and about 5 steps below paramedic, but it does expand your scope of practice a bit. Classes are about the same time commitment as EMT. 

Honestly, don't worry too much about what adcoms will think. Based on what you have posted in the past, it's clear you are in it for the right reasons. At this point you just need to do whatever you can to protect your GPA. You can always get more experience later. However you choose to do that is up to you.