A dystopian new normal

Many will remember a point in time when COVID-19 crept into their lives, turning many concepts we took for granted on their heads. For me, 14 March 2020 was the date that signified this change. I didn't know it at the time, but after two and a half years, this would be my last day on an ambulance as a student paramedic; my last day with a clinical mentor peering over my shoulder, the last time I would see all of my classmates together, and the start of a ‘new normal’ that a year and a half on, still feels like a dystopian future from a Stephen King novel.

At the time of writing, I am exactly one year into my career as a paramedic and what have I learned? As a student, it was easy to equate learning and progression with each passing year of university—the exams, the assignments, the placements. At the start of my first year, I remember looking on in awe at the ‘swagger’ of the newly anointed second-year students as they came back from their ambulance placements, carrying themselves like they had just completed two tours of duty, they had finally earned their stripes on ‘the road’—they had seen stuff!