Never Mind, Boe Peep, We Will Find Your Sheep
Once again, Jari returns to the open road in idle search of a career. I accomplished what I set out to accomplish this year and achieved the personal edification goals I set for myself. While the medical field still bears further exploration, I have learned what I needed to learn, and leave the world of the Emergency Medical Technician feeling mostly satisfied. Next stop? Well, summer holiday, but after that, bible college! And so another chapter in the search for Jari Major will begin.
The longer, more cathartic rant version:
Six months ago this cougar enrolled in an Emergency Medical Technician course through the localest (hardly local at that) community college. I took the class mostly for personal development, namely to build self confidence and my mobility/reaction time in high stress situations, and to learn a bit about how I can help in emergency situations. Other perks included having a basically guaranteed job wherever I went and an extremely high level of job satisfaction (not to mention post-9/11 retail discounts for emergency service personnel *innocent grin*). It helped that I had an extensive background in the medical sciences and considerable interest in the same.
Though admittedly a little predictable (especially in retrospect), the single most (immediately) important thing I learned as an EMT in training was that Jaris get as sick in ambulances as they do in any other objects in motion, possibly even more so. Of nearly equal importance, at least for the viability of a Jarian EMT career, was the discovery that in order to progress beyond the EMT-Basic level (i.e. to something that pays more than minimum wage), one must be employed by an emergency services agency (i.e. a fire department or ambulance service). In the state of Idaho I must be affiliated with an agency even to hold Basic certification. Since I spent (the job-hunting) half of my typical year in Idaho, this means that unless I affiliate myself with a fire service (even getting a BAD full-time EMT-B job this close to Boise would be nearly impossible), holding EMT certification would have be utterly useless to me. And since I'd likely be just as incapacitated on a fire engine as I would have been on an ambulance, EMT certification would have been a waste of the $150 dollars a shot (I seriously doubt I'd pass the test on the first try).
Final exams are Monday/Wednesday, and class ends a couple weeks later. The National Registry Certification test is a month away. It seems horribly disheartening to turn away after the hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars I've spent on this class with nothing more tangible than a Hepatitis Immunity. But even if I did pay the $150 and pass the National Registry (NREMT) certification exam(s) on the first try, I would still have to put in copious amounts of training and recertification hours (which cost money as well as time) every year in order to maintain my useless certification. Even knowing all this it still hurts turn back at this late date. I think I understand how Shirl felt when, two courses away from a degree, she finally had to admit that she could stand her Major no longer. Luckily for me, if circumstances change inside two years, I'll still be eligible for the NREMT certification, provided I take and pass the aforementioned $150 test(s). So I’m not abandoning EMT-B completely.