After reading bipolaRNurse's post, I just remembered I have an emt friend. My friend's schedule can get out of control. She often has to work past her 12 hour shift and pick up more shifts in the week. There are days where she doesn't get to sleep very long and this can trigger a manic episode. I live near a very bad city with a lot of crime and she has to deal with their shenanigans. She has had numerous gun shot victims, children, people die on her etc. I also think it's the emts that pick up the dead patients from hospice care and bring them to the hospital. My other emt friend works for a different county and he doesn't deal with the city shenanigans. He really loves his job, but I don't know how stressful it is for him. I'd imagine it isn't since I never heard anything negative about it. It really depends where you work and how you handle stress. Generally in the medical field you have to work over time so that's something to keep in mind. Working to much with a stressful job and lack of sleep can be quite terrible.