Student Perspectives

I didn't grow up wanting to be a paramedic—it is something that I fell into. I started 4.5 years ago on Patient Transport and progressed into Urgent Care for a private ambulance company. While on an urgent-care shift, my colleague and I were sent to attend an elderly patient who was confused and lethargic. When we arrived, the patient was very sick; tachycardic, hypotensive, pyrexial, hyperglycaemic—you name it. I just remember having this feeling of knowing that this patient needed a level of care that I just couldn't provide—and I felt useless.

We requested paramedic assistance—which felt like it took forever with a patient that sick—but the two paramedics who came were amazing and reassured us that we had done the right thing asking for help. We helped the crew to get the patient onto the ambulance and they took the patient into hospital on a standby.

After that incident, I knew that I wanted to equip myself with as much knowledge and skill as I could to help people—I applied to be an Emergency Medical Technician 1 the very next day and started working on the Paramedic Emergency Service for North West Ambulance Service a few months later. Fast forward 3 years and I'm in my 2nd year of my DipHE at Edge Hill University.