Most people don’t know what they want to be or do when they grow up. Even adults are often lost, when it comes to picking a career. When you are close to finishing high school or college it becomes the number one topic, what are you going to do? Many people feel the pressure to pick a path, even if they are feeling unsure. This pressure and unsureness often leads people to settling for any job, just to have a job.
Often times you have to start a new job to find out if it’s even a good fit for you, if you’ll love it or hate it. But wouldn’t it be nice to try a job out, before you make a commitment? Well for EMS, you can. Explorer programs have been around for a long time, often being implemented in high school and younger college students.
Explorer programs allow a limited group of people, usually between ages 12-20, to get some basic medical training, respond to real 911 calls, and see medical and traumatic emergencies firsthand. They get hands on experience with checking vitals, bandaging injuries, talking to patients, and more. Explorers usually complete the program with CPR training, and either become an EMR or an EMT basic. Sometimes young people use this real-world experience to build their foundation of medical education and a career, they learn basic medical skills, or they may even learn that this is definitely a career path that they want to pursue. Either way, they will get some valuable knowledge.
Explore programs are hands on and teach structure, time management, responsibility, leadership, professionalism, consequences, and they can even have the ability to help those who cannot help themselves.
Learning structure, time management, and responsibility are very important. Most jobs require you to show up on time, but rarely require or reward you for being early. EMS, however, you have to be early. You need to have a chance to get to your ambulance, make sure your supplies are in order, in date, accounted for, and working appropriately so that you are ready to respond to a call as soon as your shift officially starts. If you show up to work late, or you’re not prepared to respond to calls, people could die, and the only one to blame is you. Knowing and accepting that level of responsibility will greatly affect how you view time management and structure in your personal and professional life.
Leadership and consequences also go hand in hand. Most people in the EMS field want to be in charge. We want to do things our way, drive my way, organize things my way, treat patients my way, and give handoff reports my way. Well, that means you have to be a leader, which is a big responsibility. There are a lot of different ways to do things, sometimes your way will work and sometimes it won’t. Being a leader means you know your policies and protocols, you know what needs to be done, and you’re willing to choose the best way to get it done, even if there are multiple ways. Being the leader also means that you are also responsible for the consequences of your decisions. Sometimes those consequences are good, sometimes not. You’ll also learn about the chain of command. With the chain of command, you need to know who to go to if you have a problem, a question, or need advice. In real life you usually can’t skip over your supervisor’s head, and go straight to the owner of your company, so learning this chain is vital for making sure you are doing things the most appropriate and efficient ways, even if you choose a different career path.
There are other benefits to joining an EMS explorer program, the program can help you further your medical, first responder, or military career, you can earn scholarships for college or trade schools, it can build your self-confidence, and volunteering always looks good on a resume. Again, with the explorer program, you are basically doing a career free trial. You have the ability to try a new career without taking the risk of paying for an expensive degree or spending years in school, just to find out if you like it or not.
What if you or your children are thinking about becoming a paramedic nurse, or doctor? You go through years of schooling just to find out you can’t stand the sight of blood. All that time, money, and education might be wasted, which could have been easily avoided with some time exploring. EMS are not the only first responders who have explorer programs, it will vary depending on where you are, but you can also try out fire and police explorer programs as well.
The main downside to the explore program is it’s usually only available to teens and young adults, however, most companies or departments will allow anyone to do a ride along on the ambulance, so you can still see what the job is like before taking those next steps. There is no harm in it, you don’t have to make a commitment to continuing after the program, so why not try it out!
