‘Barry stop worrying so much, one day you'll look up and 30 years will have passed, just do the best you can, learn from it, and move on—one patient at a time… now, it's 4 am, for the love of all that is holy, stop asking me questions before I bludgeon you to death with that ‘little Annie’ doll in the corner!’
When I was a student paramedic, my mentor had a steady string of little pearls of wisdom like this, always hidden behind a wall of dark humour and cynicism, but that were equally endearing towards my untainted, and unhinged enthusiasm for all things paramedic. And while I did not fully know what he meant at the time, after 3 years as a student, and now 2 as an NQP, I am finally starting to understand it.
It feels like just yesterday that I walked onto my ambulance station for the first time, ready to take on the world as a brand new, shiny, keen, and very green NQP—but nothing could have prepared me for the turbulent 2 years that would follow. Against the backdrop of a once-in-a-century global pandemic, I have experienced the endless highs and lows of what it truly means to be a paramedic. I have been at the side of patients, and held their hand through some of the darkest—and the brightest—times in their lives. I have seen more death and families torn apart than most ‘normal’ people will ever experience in their lifetime. In a single shift, I have felt like I could ‘high-five’ everyone in the room, including the patient, the doctors and nurses, while at the end of it feeling completely lost, and hopeless, questioning just about every clinical decision I made that day. But the one constant that has gotten me through the tough days has always been that of my crew mates (crewies)—no matter what, they always manage to find the light and (filthy) humour to make me smile.
Every shift has been a rollercoaster—like one of those old fashioned wooden ones that are super clanky and leave your knees and back feeling battered and bruised. It is often said that in this job, ‘no two days are the same’—a slogan that I have come to loathe over time as it is overused in recruitment posters and TV shows about the ambulance service. The truth is that, just like in any job, it can feel ‘samey’ at times and, when it does, burnout has a tendency to rear its ugly head. So my advice to any NQP or experienced paramedic reading this would be to not become stagnant or overly reliant on the ambulance service to fulfil your every need as a paramedic. Find other ways of diversifying your practice, be it further education, research, mentorship, or writing a column! Such opportunities help to keep things fresh—both on and off the ambulance—and slowly build your portfolio for future endeavours.
Sometimes when I am on shift, I still think about my old mentor who has since retired. For everything he faced over those years and despite being beat down by a health service to which he had given so much, I could tell that in his own way, he still cared deeply about what he did, and that every time he stepped onto that ambulance, he was proud to call himself a paramedic.