Placement 3 (Year One): Ambulance

April 2026.

It has felt like a mixture of both long weeks, but short days. My placement on the recent ambulance station has come to an end, my mentor, the ambulance staff and patients have been a great and I will always feel grateful for their time.

With the help from my mentor, being on this placement has reminded me that is okay to not be sure where your headspace is. It is okay to have ideas but struggle to manage them. It is alright to want to do something, but not sure how to go about it. I have thoroughly enjoyed the time to develop my history taking, conduct patient assessments and listen to their stories.

It reminds me that being a paramedic is not always about the gory stuff, working in high-stress pre-hospital enviroments can have better outcomes if you are able to pause and take the situation around you, not just jump to an assumption. To make a note of the information that is being displayed to you as a skill, I have realised that developing this skill will take time… certainly more than four weeks.

Time for some recharging back at home, before heading back into university.