An emergency medical technician (commonly called “paramedics” despite the job being slightly different, or abbreviated as “EMT”) works as part of an emergency response team, providing immediate assistance in situations of disasters, incidents and other cases where medical assistance may be required on the spot. The situations where an EMT team may be summoned commonly include fires, car accidents, riots and other events where people are prone to injury. An EMT works very differently from standard physicians, as they offer immediate assistance to victims and are often required to make critical decisions in a split second upon arrival.
Becoming an EMT doesn’t involve the strict educational procedures that regular physicians need to go through – instead, a high school diploma is enough to certify a candidate for training, after which they’re taken through a process of certification. It’s important for an EMT to go through a re-evaluation process every few years, as this is a required procedure for retaining one’s certification.
Despite the stress involved in the job and the skills required to perform it properly, it’s still a low-paid job by most standards, especially those of physicians. An emergency medical technician can earn between $28,000 – $42,000 a year, and in some rare cases up to $55,000 when more experience comes into play and the situation is more favorable. Those are exceptions though and the job tends to have a very low workload/pay ratio, though on the other hand it commonly has some very attractive benefits attached to it which can offset this to some extent.