Paramedic School: The Stress Test

A lot of people signed up for the paramedic class, so there was no guarantee of getting accepted. We had to take an entrance exam, and I walked out of it feeling like I didn’t do very well. Apparently I did better than some, because I got accepted into the upcoming class.

That’s when the nerves really started.

The main instructor was a world-renowned speaker—well known for prehospital cardiology and 12-lead interpretation. I’d talked to plenty of medics who’d been through the program, and they all said the same thing: the class was hard, and the instructor could be a hard-ass. That reputation didn’t exactly calm me down.

Work, school, and family… all at once

After I was accepted, the EMS department worked with my schedule so I could keep full-time status while going to school full-time. I could work dispatch or work the ambulance to stay full time.

On paper, it sounded doable.

In real life, it was a grind.

Class was two 8-hour days a week, plus the occasional Saturday. Dispatch and ambulance shifts were 12 hours. Add a family at home, and it started to feel like I lived in Springfield. Hospital, class, shift, repeat. Days ran together. I was home just long enough to sleep and head back out.

Melissa carried a lot of the weight at home during that time. She kept the household running and did everything she could to take stress off me. I wouldn’t have made it through without her.

The class starts full… and gets smaller

I think we started with 32 students. That’s a big class.

Bob was a great instructor. He wasn’t cruel—he was just direct. He gave you the information and expected you to learn it. The class started out with ethics and operations—basic stuff. Then we got into the real medicine and the expectations climbed fast.

What impressed me most was how Bob taught. He could explain the same concept two different ways at the same time, like he was teaching multiple learning styles in one sentence. It’s hard to describe unless you’ve seen it, but it worked.

The only problem was the sheer volume.

The deeper we got into paramedicine, the more overwhelming it became. Every few weeks, someone would drop out. Our numbers got smaller and smaller.

Cardiology was the gatekeeper

Bob taught everything we needed to become solid paramedics—but his real passion was cardiology. He was thorough, and he wouldn’t allow failure.

If you couldn’t get the cardiology portion, you didn’t continue.

That’s part of why his success rate was so high. He didn’t push people through who couldn’t safely handle the material. Once you passed cardiology, you could start clinicals in the hospital.

And that’s when the workload really stacked up.

So now I’m working full time, going to class two days a week, and trying to knock out clinical hours across the hospital. Stress wasn’t a side effect—it was the schedule.

Clinicals: the hospital teaches you humility

Clinicals were eye-opening. You rotate through a bunch of departments—I think it was around ten different areas—and you see how each unit operates, how they think, and how they manage patients.

I enjoyed the higher-acuity areas: ICU-type environments where everything is time-sensitive and the team has that Type-A emergency-services energy. Step-down units and medical floors weren’t as exciting, but the staff still provided exceptional care.

The most eye-opening rotation for me was pediatrics—especially the NICU.

After twelve hours in that unit, I had a whole new level of respect for the people who work there.

Pediatric care is scary to a lot of providers—me included—not because we can’t provide care, but because we don’t get as much real-world experience with kids. The NICU staff were a different kind of confident. Calm, kind, precise. Every room was full of sick kids, and they still managed to bring compassion into every interaction—with patients and families.

That kind of confidence and compassion is hard to understand unless you’ve witnessed it.

And it stays with you.

Tell the Story

If you’ve been through paramedic school, dispatch training, fire academy, or any version of “learning it the hard way,” you already know—some lessons don’t come from textbooks.

Maybe it was the class that almost broke you.
The instructor you’ll never forget.
The rotation that changed how you look at patients—or yourself.

If you’ve got a story like that, share it below.

No patient identifiers. Other than that, bring the honesty, the dark humor, and the reality that only people in this job understand.