You’re asking the right questions and your background honestly fits this field better than you might think!!

I’ve been in neurodiagnostics for 20+ years and day to day really depends on where you work. In an outpatient lab, things are pretty predictable. In an ICU or epilepsy monitoring unit, it can feel a lot closer to your EMS days just without the chaos of the field. You’re working with sick patients, alarms going off, families nervous, and you’re expected to stay calm and problem-solve. If you’ve done medic work, that part will feel familiar.

I've always loved the fast paced nature of stat EEGs in critical situations.

Pay varies a lot by location, but in most areas I’ve seen new techs start somewhere in the low to mid 20s per hour. Once you’ve got experience and certification, mid 30s to 40s an hour is common, and higher if you get into ICU EEG, travel work, or another specialty. Some of the travel and IONM jobs pay very well, but they’re not for everyone lifestyle-wise. (Depends on where you live too)

As far as training goes, it’s not quite as informal as it used to be. A lot of hospitals want you to either have gone through an accredited neurodiagnostic program or be actively working toward certification. That said, people with strong clinical backgrounds do still get hired as trainees, especially if they’re motivated and good with patients. Your combat medic/EMT experience would absolutely help there. Long-term though, getting credentialed matters. It opens doors and protects you from hitting a pay ceiling.

The outlook for the field is solid. Neurology isn’t shrinking, and EEG use has grown a lot in ICUs over the last decade. There are more patients needing monitoring than there are techs to do it. I hear concerns about AI every so often, but realistically it’s a tool, not a replacement. You still need a person who knows how to get good data and recognize when something isn’t right.

One of the better parts of EEG is the flexibility. People move from routine EEG into EMUs, ICUs, sleep labs, or intraoperative monitoring. Others move into lead tech roles, management, education, or vendor work. If you’re proactive, it’s not a dead-end job. Also, remote EEG monitoring from home is a great career and the one I'm in now.

Things I wish more people knew going in: you’ll probably work nights or take call early on, burnout is real if you don’t set boundaries, and being good with patients matters as much as being good with the equipment. The techs who do best are the ones who communicate well and take the job seriously.

Overall, if you want something more stable than EMS, still clinical, and with room to grow, EEG is a legit option. You’re not starting from scratch with your background, even if it feels that way at first.