A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN EMT | Non-traditional Premed

A day in the life of an EMT, showcasing typical calls, shift routines, and challenges faced during a non-traditional premed experience.

Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.

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Key Takeaways

EMT shifts involve a mix of scheduled and emergency calls with varying levels of patient interaction.
Flight calls are unique but sometimes less engaging for EMTs due to limited patient care.
Effective communication with dispatch is crucial but can sometimes be challenging.
Routine tasks such as cleaning and documentation are essential parts of the job.
Teamwork and shift-sharing strategies help manage workload and fatigue.

What the video covers

The video follows an EMT's shift starting early morning with clock-in and rig checks.
The EMT and partner share driving and texting duties during their shift.
They respond to various calls including flight calls, inter-facility transfers, and a potential bariatric call.
Flight calls involve coordinating with flight nurses but limited patient care.
Inter-facility transfers are scheduled and often short-distance hospital transports.
The video highlights routine tasks like cleaning the ambulance and writing patient care reports.
There are occasional dispatch miscommunications, such as with the bariatric call.
The EMTs take breaks and manage shift fatigue with small perks like coffee.
The day is described as relatively chill and less eventful than expected.
The video aims to provide an authentic glimpse into the life and work of an EMT.

Chapters

What types of calls do EMTs typically respond to during a shift?

EMTs respond to a variety of calls including emergency flight calls, inter-facility transfers, and routine scheduled transports. Some calls involve direct patient care while others are more observational or logistical.

How do EMTs share responsibilities during their shift?

In this video, the EMTs share driving and texting duties, switching roles halfway through the shift. They also divide tasks such as cleaning the ambulance and completing patient care reports to manage workload efficiently.

What challenges do EMTs face with dispatch communication?

Dispatch miscommunications can occur, such as incorrect tagging of bariatric patients, leading to delays or cancellations. EMTs often have to clarify details with dispatch to ensure they respond appropriately.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

[Music] Good morning, guys. It is 5:30, but my clock is fast. It's probably 5:29. I'm about to clock in, and I thought I would just vlog today and show you guys what it's like. A day in the life of an EMT. It's nothing too exciting, really. You'll see that our calls really aren't what you probably think they might be, but it'll be really fun to show you guys kind of what our shift is like and the type of calls we get today.

Speaker A

Guess what? I'm gonna vlog today. Wow. Okay, so we just clocked in, and we got stuff from VST. I'll show you guys what we get. So this is just something that we write down all our calls on.

Speaker A

And Lacey is super pumped that I'm vlogging for today, as you can tell. So we have two phones. We used to have a big like iPad thing, but we got rid of them for some reason. I don't know.

Speaker A

So let's see. I have to log into this one [Music] because I already logged into the other phone [Music]. Um, so we just put like our ID number in, and I'm already logged on, so it'll pull us up. And then this is our tablet that

Speaker A

we use to do our PCRs. And then this is our Epi that we get each morning. I've only actually used this one time, but when people are having an allergic reaction, then we get to give them a shot of Epi, and we don't do

Speaker A

the auto-injectors anymore because they're too expensive, and this saves a lot of money, I guess. And so that's what we're doing. We're doing rig check now. Lacey's making sure we have everything. So yeah, cheers. So I just got our post at

Speaker A

Harper View Medical Center. Lacey's just grabbing something from her car, and then we're gonna head there. So how me and Lacey do it, I drive the first half of the shift, and then she texts, and then we switch around 11:30,

Speaker A

and she drives the second half, and then I tuck. So we kind of just do all at once, and we really like that. So we didn't make it to our post. We actually got a call from Boeing. What?

Speaker A

Okay, so we didn't make it to our post. We got a call from Boeing, and it was really last minute. Apparently, they're already on the ground, but we don't see them, so they must have just landed. Anyway, we're getting a flight call, so

Speaker A

these guys are going to come in on a plane, and the flight crew is going to be with them. So the patient isn't technically in our care, but they're really phone calls to get. I think some people don't like them.

Speaker A

I've worked with someone that doesn't like it because they said the flight nurses—no, not you. You just looked at me. Well, I can't tell if she likes them. I just, I'd rather like be doing more patient care.

Speaker A

Yeah, so we don't get to like be with the patient, or it's not—yeah, the patient's not in our care. I like it just because we get to like talk with the flight nurses and yeah, like asking them about their job

Speaker A

and how long they've been doing it and like hearing about cool calls or if we might get a cool call. Like one time, we got like that had a stake in his lip, and that was pretty cool. Yeah, I

Speaker A

don't know what this call it is. We usually—I don't—I feel like we usually don't. We're just waiting for them to pull up, I guess. It's usually either two flight nurses or a flight nurse and a

Speaker A

medic or two medics. Yeah, it depends on the company. This is Monitor Lifeline. I think that's a nurse, two nurses. Yeah, so it'll be fun. I'm super excited. Lacey is less excited, too early for her. So it's 8:16. We just finished the

Speaker A

flight call, and we're just waiting on dispatch to tell us where to go next. Sometimes they forget about us, I think. So the patient that the flight crew had was someone who was in a car wreck, and he was pretty stable,

Speaker A

though, so it wasn't anything too exciting. He was talking and everything. He was just hooked up to a lot of IVs and their monitor and everything, so nothing too exciting. And we just took them to the emergency room, dropped them off, and then

Speaker A

dropped the flight crew back off at the airport, and now we're just waiting for our next post. All right, so it's almost 11 o'clock. We had our break at 9:30. It's been a super chill morning. We had our second call shortly after

Speaker A

break. We're just finishing up from that, finishing up from that now. Lacey's writing her patient care report, PCR, and all I do in that case when I drive is clean the gurney afterwards and then clean the back of the ambulance.

Speaker A

And so now I'm just going to eat lunch, and we're going to clear soon and maybe get posted, maybe have a second call, who knows. All right, so it's two o'clock. We just got some coffee from Starbucks. I bought Lacey some coffee to bribe her

Speaker A

for putting up with my vlogging all day. And we had our third call earlier. It was just an inter-facility transfer, which just means that it's kind of a scheduled call, which is different from the fire call that we got

Speaker A

previous to that. And it was a really short drive. It was just from Swedish First or where we start from, so we're just Cherry Hill, this Swedish—Swedish, that's hard to say—Swedish First Hill to Swedish Cherry Hill.

Speaker A

Right? No, Cherry to First. Welcome cities. Anyway, it was a transfer between two hospitals that are less than a mile away, so it was a really short call. So now we're on break. How much time

Speaker A

longer do we have a break? Oh yeah, I could tell them about almost getting a bari call. So we got a call from dispatch, and a bari call for us is if the patient is 300 pounds or above,

Speaker A

then it's considered a bari call, which means you get a different type of rig, and the gurney is wider. We saw that it was—it said the patient was 302 pounds, so we had to text dispatch and say, hey,

Speaker A

are we assisting? Is this our call? Is it supposed to be bari? What's going on? And it was kind of just a lot of miscommunication. Dispatch didn't realize that it was a bari patient, so we kind of just waited

Speaker A

there for 15 minutes, and we ended up going up because dispatch was on hold for a while, and they said, can you just go up? Comm soup said it's fine. And then as soon as we get up there, dispatch had

Speaker A

finally gotten through, and it turns out she's a bari patient, and so we got cancelled. So stuff like that happens all the time. I haven't been working a lot, but Lacey says that that stuff has been happening more often, but it just happens. I try to

Speaker A

give dispatch the benefit of the doubt. Lacey works way more often than me, so I'm sure it's more frustrating for her, but yeah, there's a lot of channels you have to go through to make a call happen, and

Speaker A

this one wasn't tagged as bari, so it was just a little mistake, some miscommunication, whatever. We got a break after, so and now we have coffee, and now we're happy. 2:10. So we only have a little over three

Speaker A

hours left. Go team! Go team! Lacey likes this a lot more now that I bought her coffee. I liked it before. I was just tired. She's tired this morning. You swear like 10 times. Okay, so fourth call of the day

Speaker A

is we're going to Issaquah to Ballard, so another transfer. Hey, is it my turn? Oh yeah, you just—one only did one. Yes, I prefer to tech because I don't like to drive very much. Hey, so it's about 4:20. We just finished

Speaker A

up our fourth call. It was another inter-facility transfer. This one was a longer ride, so I have most of my PCR done, but I'm just finishing that up now. All right, it's 4:33, and we just cleared

Speaker A

from our last call, and dispatch was very wonderful to us, and we're already headed back to the station. So that's pretty exciting because sometimes we just wait around for 10 minutes with anxiety thinking that we might get a really late call at the last minute

Speaker A

and then not get back to the station until 30 minutes after our shift ends, but today is a great day. It was really chill. Yeah, really too much. It's a pretty boring day to vlog, but I hope you enjoyed it. See you next time.

Speaker A

Okay, bye. Right now, we're on break. Um, thank you. Yeah, it's gonna be all day.

Speaker A

okay bye right now we're on break um thank you yeah it's gonna be all day

Topics:EMTEmergency Medical Technicianday in the lifepremedmedical callsflight callinter-facility transferpatient care reportambulanceEMS

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