Practice, research, publish, practice…

I had an interesting conversation the other day with a former nurse who claimed that my work, publishing research and clinical articles for providers of health care, affects theoretical professional knowledge—but doesn't have an impact on real people. Of course a person's knowledge is going to affect the way they provide care to a person; but besides that, in today's era of evidence-based practice, we are all working together in a cycle to not only advance the profession of paramedics and other prehospital care providers, but to improve the standard of care being delivered to patients.

You practise as a paramedic, educator, leader or researcher, you conduct a study, collect and analyse data, draw results and conclusions, and then apply those findings back into your practice again. The same goes for the following and creation of guidelines—which are also cyclical in nature—or the observations of best practice or service innovations which are then published, disseminated and replicated, or which then inspire similar novel approaches and services to come to fruition.