Why MedEvac?

QXDX

Well-Known Member
Was at the local hospital last night and saw two EMS helicopters arrive and depart. It got me to wondering what kind of person chooses the profession, and why. Anyone want to share?
 
Week on, week off, usually home every 12 hours. (Hint: Happiness happens for those that live near their base) Interesting work, long hours of boredom. We’re about triple busy now though.
 
And absolutely, positively nuts. The bulk of them……. :)

Every medical specialty has it's personality type.

Surgeons really are the hyper competitive jock stereotype that is shown on TV.
Oncologists are the eternal optimists of the crowd.
Internal medicine are the chess club
Ect...

ER docs are the adrenaline junkies and masters of chaos. They all have big crazy families, 27 different projects doing on at once, nothing they won't try once.
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So much of college…

It helps to have really easy veins to practice IVs on.


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Post bar parties where we all end up crashed on someone’s couch with IV bags nailed to the wall and starting IVs on each other…


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Post bar parties where we all end up crashed on someone’s couch with IV bags nailed to the wall and starting IVs on each other…


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Pregaming where you put a heplock in before you even went out…


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Week on, week off, usually home every 12 hours. (Hint: Happiness happens for those that live near their base) Interesting work, long hours of boredom. We’re about triple busy now though.
This. Although I was disappointed to find out how trivial most of the transports are. I thought I was going to be the helping the chances of someone's survival. Turns out it was more like a sick people taxi service. There are a that I felt like I made a difference though.
 
I will have to state that MedEvac/Air Ambulance is one of the most rewarding job I've ever had! (Army side too!!)

Base living and the schedule make it great; 12 hour shifts, 7/7, and home every day. When I was covering the fixed-wing side, I could respond from home and still easily make my dispatch time so that was a bonus.

As posted above, there are a LOT of transports that really could be done much cheaper AND with much less risk for the patient. However, when you land on a highway, take a patient that has just been cut out of a car, get them to the hospital safely and quickly, and see them later recovered, the job isn't "just a job". For me, even if I went home at the end of a shift having not flown, I still felt that I was serving,

On the fixed-wing side, it was much less exciting but was still pretty fun because there were different airports/approaches and something new almost every day.
 
I know my situation is not typical. I live where I am based working 15on/15off with 12 hour shifts (fixed wing). My house is 12 minutes from the airport and I have to be to the hangar within 20 minutes of accepting a flight. Most days I do nothing having to with my job. In 2021 I was in my own bed all but 4 or 5 nights while on shift (ferried a plane for mx and then the part didn’t work and wx went to poop and couldn’t make it home for a few days). I work a lot extra because I hardly work to begin with. At this rate I don’t know if I would leave my gig for a major. Biggest problem for medevac pilots working for private companies is your base is only as good as the current contract.
 
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