Do firefighter/emts have jobs other than this usually? ?

Question

Right now I'm a cadet a fire department. I'm 16, and I already have committed to becoming a nurse practitioner. I also really want to become a firefighter EMT, but I wasn't sure if I'd have to choose. Help?

Answer 1

The road to get to Nurse Practitioner is long and requires your fulltime attention. Being a Nurse Practitioner requires your fulltime attention to stay current.



Paid/career fire departments expect you to show up for work and to do all of the mandated training that goes with the job.



Trying to do two very time consuming careers will just make you half assed at both and dangerous to patients and the public you serve.



Not many are going to start a 6 - 8 year road to being an NP after retiring from the FD at age 50 with a full pension. Why the hell would you? You would be 60 when you finished.



BTW, Ashley is a volunteer and not a career FF or EMT and is not a nurse. Of course volunteers have time on their hands and work at other jobs. She definitely does not speak for "most" firefighters or EMTs or nurses.

Answer 2

Do you realize it will take you at almost 8 years of full time training to become a nurse practitioner. You will need 4 years of full time college to get the BSN for your RN license. You will then need at least 2 years of working as an RN and then 2 more years of school for a Masters degree to be a nurse practitioner. Plus, by then the standard will be Doctorate which will be at least another 18 months to 2 years of education. No fire department will ever work your schedule around all of that education and a full tme nursing job.



You can be an EMT in just a few weeks. To get on with a paid fire department you should be at least a Paramedic.



Getting a FD job will be very, very competitive. But then so will getting into nursing school.

Answer 3

Well, it depends on what type of role do you want. Do you want to be a full-time firefighter/EMT? If you do, then it's probably going to be hard to be an active firefighter/EMT and trying to get all your nursing classes done mostly due to the limited choices of when to do clinicals.



However, many departments are volunteer and you can manage nursing school and volunteering easily. You should also be able to manage a part-time firefighter/EMT position. However, some departments are starting to push for paramedics for even volunteers. These departments seem to be in areas where there are a bunch of EMS schools though.



Like realistically, get a part-time position, paid on call, or per call and it shouldn't an issue with being a firefighter/EMT and the schooling you will need to get.



I also know of firefighters/paramedics who later become nurse practitioners or physician assistants after they retire from full-time firefighting.



On my combo department, most of the firefighters have other jobs like teaching EMS students, patient care techs, flight paramedics/nurses, and ER nurses. They usually are not full-time though since they rotate every 3rd day.

Answer 4

Most of them don't have another job because one full time job is enough. However you probably could hold a 2nd job because they usually have 4 days off at a time, so if the 2nd job is flexible with the rotating schedule of being a firefighter it could work.



2 full time jobs would be pretty hard though, so do some research to see if part time nurse practictioner jobs exist.