My original essential question was “What is it like to work in private paid EMS?” and that seemed like a good question at the time. However, as I had somewhat expected, my question had not been adequate to help create a narrative/understanding of what the experiential portion of project was to be. I ended up splitting my time about 50/50 between private and volunteer EMS. I ended up learning quite a lot about what it was like to be in private EMS and EMS in general but I also learned more than I thought I would about patient care and the volunteer side of EMS. A more fitting question, I decided, was what is it like to work in EMS (more or less) full time. That was a more general and encompassing question of what was actually being done with my project and I feel like I better answered it. What I learned about private EMS was much more from talking to people in private EMS than actually the work itself. I heard phrases like “I’ve worked for [redacted company] for 4 years and I have never wanted a company to go out of business so bad in my entire life” and “Eat when you can, drink when you can, pee when you can because if you don’t you’re going to suffer when you want to.” One of my most expected and realized challenges was the extremely long hours that working in EMS sometimes requires, this was overcome with a lot of coffee and adrenaline. Doing this kind of work for more than a month and a half full time would no doubt be damaging to anybody who does it, not unmanageable but there would definitely be some side effects and consequences. Risks that I took included the possibility of needle sticks, assaults, MVAs, along with sleep deprivation on certain occasions, etc. These, however, helped answer my essential question in a lot of ways that I would not have expected in the past. Something that surprised me about my time during my project was that volunteers (although heavily made fun of [as is the culture of EMS]) are generally accepted in the camaraderie that exists among EMS workers in New York and across the country. One question that this experience has raised for me is how is it possible that EMS is paid so poorly despite the work they do, and how is it that these people are able to make a living. Something that I would like to make known about my senior project is the issues of wages and abuse of workers in EMS as this is not a talked-about issue. Discussing some of my experiences and the dangers they have presented and then following up with a discussion of the wages/benefits in EMS and their comparisons to other first responders and possibly medical professions would help to really highlight what I am trying to get across about EMS.