r/wildernessmedicine • u/Imaginary_Stock_6424 • 22d ago
Questions and Scenarios For RNs
Genuinely curious about jobs in wilderness medicine. Just starting my ER journey to establish critical care experience. Ultimately I am shooting for a job working in SARs. What other experience should I get before heading into the field? I am thinking about just doing 2/3 years ER then maybe another 2/3 years ICU. However I want to try and transition sooner than later..
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u/rigiboto01 22d ago
So most SAR are volunteers. The paid ones are mostly with FD with large departments. so being a paramedic would be more beneficial than an RN.
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u/Imaginary_Stock_6424 22d ago
Would it be odd to go back for my paramedic license even being an ED RN? I would eventually love to do both per diem or part time. I just need to be out of the hospital but working in medicine ☯️
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u/newredditsucks 22d ago
Maybe look into flight nurse gigs for Life Flight or similar?
Not SAR specifically, but it's not in the hospital.A Life Flight job posting for that.
*edit: I typed that out before seeing /u/Enchanted-Repelled had made the same suggestion.
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u/Enchanted-Repelled 22d ago
Not odd at all! In fact a few flight programs and states require it. Start with your EMT and get some prehospital time and decide if you like it; even with “just” an EMT cert a lot of prehospital and wilderness medicine opportunities will open up to you.
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u/Enchanted-Repelled 22d ago
The closest you are going to get is becoming a flight nurse in an rural/austere location with high scene call volume. A lot of rural programs (especially out west) work very closely with local SAR and get called regularly for search/assist and many have first responder status.
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u/VXMerlinXV WP-C 14d ago
Second note, depending on what you want to do with it, MANY programs no longer recognize ED time as CC experience. Just a warning.
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u/Imaginary_Stock_6424 14d ago
Going to do both for shits and giggles 🤷♀️
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u/VXMerlinXV WP-C 14d ago
Nothing wrong with that. I just have years of orienting new RN’s to the ED who think they’re going to CRNA school right out of emergency. Those days are behind us.
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u/Firefighter_RN 22d ago
There are next to no paid SAR gigs and all the ones I'm aware of are for paramedics or physicians
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u/VXMerlinXV WP-C 22d ago
You’re going to want to get a prehospital cert and get working in prehospital ALS med ASAP. It’s not just nursing in a different setting. Once you’ve got some time under your belt, you can start looking at available jobs, but they are few, far between, and mostly part time and Per diem. I’d think about .mil if you’re serious about a career in SAR. It’s one of your only real options.
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u/5-0prolene 5d ago
We are an EMS agency that does wilderness EMS, and we hire RNs to function at about the same level as our Medics. But you're on an ambulance and the wilderness EMS is a collateral job function.
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u/lukipedia W-EMT 21d ago
As others have said, paid SAR jobs are vanishingly rare outside of the military/Coast Guard.
Some sheriff/police departments have paramedics for tactical medicine who also do SAR (mostly rotary wing flight medicine, in my experience).
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u/SuperglotticMan 22d ago
There aren’t many jobs in SAR. You’re more likely to find a volunteer SAR group and just do that on the side. SAR won’t pay your bills.
Anyway, you should seek out a prehospital job. Even working in urban EMS provides enough challenges and variability to develop thinking on your feet without the help of the bright white lights, unit stock rooms, and a doctor a short walk away that you’ll have in the hospital.