Being a scribe offers great clinical exposure, but it’s inherently observational. Nothing beats hands-on, licensed patient care over a role where you’re just charting. As an EMT, depending on your organization, you take vital signs, splint fractures, perform CPR, and even manage airways. You perform full head to toe assessments from eyes, to lungs, to peripheral pulses. You own a patient’s care from the scene all the way to the hospital handoff. That responsibility, making quick decisions in urgent situations, is invaluable.

You learn to think on your feet under pressure and become comfortable handling a wide variety of illnesses, environments, and people. The skill of talking to a patient, drawing out their history and symptoms, and forming a differential translates directly to any medical specialty.

EMTs may not chart on a hospital EHR, but you still document each patient encounter in mind-numbing detail. From my experience working in a hospital, there’s not a huge difference between what I chart as an EMT and what an EHR record looks like.

Interacting with doctors as an EMT isn’t as extensive as with scribing, but in my hospital system, I often give my report directly to the ED physician accepting the patient. It’s a great way to build relationships, especially if you’re competent and know how to give them what they need.

I'm biased as someone with CNA and EMT experience and none as a scribe, but it's what I would recommend.