Rural EMS vs the City

[MacBook]

Let's hear what you prefer, your experiences and you reasons for working where you currently work.

The service I am going back up for in 2 weeks, is a rural service about an 90 mins outside of town. Closest back up is an hour away. Love rural EMS and always will. Longer patient contact, larger scopes and more time to practice medicine.
Let's hear those experiences.

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[leviathan]

My primary station is a rural town (pop. 1,200) with a call volume of about the same number per year. I also work on my "off days" in Vancouver, so I see both ends. Rural is pretty scary, but it also gives you the opportunity to do some actual patient care. People in rural areas also seem to be much more stoic, and do not call 911 as often for minor complaints. I also often later run into the patients I have helped in the past, and so I sometimes get gratitude for the things I've done in what is usually a thankless profession.

In the city, you are so close to a hospital that you barely get a chance to do much before you transfer care. However, there is also a much higher volume of patients in the city and more chance to keep your skills up. Both areas have their pros and cons.

 

[fiznat]

I work for a service that covers a major urban area as well as some of the surrounding towns. Our transport times are anywhere between one and fifteen minutes, depending on the location of the call and the traffic etc. I think it is a good mix, and I'm glad for the short transport time as I feel it has made me a better medic. Short transport times force you to be very fast and efficient with your assessment and treatment, and even though I miss out on those (probably rare) 1-hour medical tightrope transport scenarios, I think I get a chance to do most everything anyways.

 

[deleted92121]

Ten station system with transport times from 1 to 35 minute transport times. Average call volume for system is approximately 30,000-40,000 actual emergencies per year (with another 40,000 transfers).

I enjoy the urban setting more for two reasons:

1. Busy. I average around 8-10 calls per 8 hour shift. Most of which are ALS. Example, yesterday I had a respiratory distress, cardiac arrest, seizure, and allergic rxn. Not too shabby in terms of decent calls.

2. Variety. As mentioned above, my days are varied. The urban setting provides such a myriad of different calls. It really makes you a better medic I think.

I always request a few shifts in a rural station whenever I get swamped with tripsheets or lots of calls. Not a big deal.

 

[MedicJ]

Where I work, we get our butts kicked. We usually only have 2-3 ambulances staffing a city of 150,000. We are seriously understaffed, but the shift is over before you know it.
We have very short transports. Anywhere from 5 minutes to 15 minutes(if we are transporting to the children's hospital).
Our city has major highways on all 4 sides so we work a ton of wrecks.
Plus, oour city has a major meth problem and a TON of nursing homes.
I like it busy because the shift goes by quick.

 

[McPoyle]

I love my service area, population is about 300,000 during the day we have eight trucks and at night we have four. We also have varying numbers of EMT trucks available. We do about 11,000 911 calls plus another 15-20000 interfacility calls. Our area is stretched out so the northern part is urban then it gets gradually suburban and finally very rural. I really enjoy how this varies from one area to another. We are not that busy, generally 4-6 calls/12 hour shift which is nice, its a pace I enjoy and allows me ample time to focus on studying.