So much more than an ambulance driver

Last month, I shared with you the moment when my 5-year-old daughter went from wanting to be a butterfly to wanting to be part of the ambulance services—a moment of pride to be sure (although, who doesn't love butterflies?). Funnily enough though, the next day she decided she wanted to be a doctor, and that her 1-year-old baby brother would be a nurse. In response to this, my husband said, ‘oh you're going to be the doctor, and your baby brother is going to be your assistant?’

Well—where do I begin? Of course, anyone who knows anything about the modern nursing profession knows that the days of nurses as handmaidens are long behind us—that nurses today are highly educated and skilled health professionals who perform minor surgeries, lead hospital services, units, even GP practices, and of course, prescribe medicines.

To give you some background, I come from a family of nurses; my first job was working in care homes; and my entry into healthcare editing was on the celebrated British Journal of Nursing. Needless to say, I was offended by the casual (and archaic) reference of the nurse as doctor's assistant. I took a deep breath, and calmly explained to my husband—and, importantly, to my daughter—the significant role of the nurse in his or her own right, and the extremely varied roles that nurses actually play in health care today. Being the new editor of the Journal of Paramedic Practice (JPP), I naturally got thinking about the role of the paramedic—and how it too has been following a similar trajectory to that of the nurse in its rapidly expanding scope of practice. The paramedic increasingly has the ability and bears the burden of lightening the oversized load of an overstretched NHS with its evolving skill sets (though many paramedics have been pursuing pathways outside of the NHS—yet further evidence of the many options open to those who choose a career as a valued paramedic).