This is a surprisingly interesting and relevant post to me that I decided to make an account to comment. I worked in IT and eventually as a programmer for 6 years, had a rough point in my life, and decided to take some time to reconsider my goals. I had always been interested in the medical field, and this was as good an opportunity as ever to do something new. I got my license and now am lucky to work 911 rescue in a larger city, both high call volume and high acuity (5 to 10 calls in 12 hours just on my truck).

Pros: - Societal good: There are few who would argue Emergency Medical personnel do harm. Being able to visibly see your work improving people's lives and contributing directly to the public good is incredibly self gratifying. - Handling emergencies: I am the one people call when things go wrong, in charge of patient care, managing scenes on the medical side. - Problem solving: each situation is unique. Assessing situations, determining patient care, and actively working difficult scenes can be fun and helps fulfill my unmedicated ADHD needs. - Handing out ambulance stickers to kids.

Cons: - Smells - Limited medical scope: I stop bleeding, give people oxygen, and get them to the hospital. I have very few medications, cannot intubate, and am not allowed to interpret an ECG. Paramedic is a 14 month program minimum that is a much larger time and money commitment, and even then, doctors are the ones that actually end up managing full patient care and make final decisions. - Pay: I took a very large pay cut. I knew this would happen, and I was incredibly burnt out at my previous job, but the medical field, especially first responders, gets away with low pay and high hours because they often rely on passion and many new people entering the field at the lower levels.

Ultimately, I still have not figured out what I want to do long term. I could go back to programming, but with the current job market, that seems inadvisable. THe medical field will pretty much always guarantee some job. I do want to pivot (still have not completed college), but see above untreated ADHD along with a few other personal things I need to work on. Nursing has higher pay, but puts you underneath doctors such that you rarely make independent medical decisions. And paramedic/firefighter is nice, but hard on the body plus issues in the culture previously discussed.

For anyone considering it, I do recommend taking a class. You can do it in 4 months with a one day a week class (how I did it), and volunteer somewhere. But understand the tradeoffs and recognize that is far from glamorous most of the time.