My Journey into Becoming a Newly Qualified Paramedic (Part 3) - NQP Trust Induction Week 2
Here is my story documenting from my last submission of my degree into becoming a baby paramedic. This series will include getting my degree, trust and local area inductions, driver training and more! It has been covid-fied (as expected) but not too much has changed, as the ambulance service has had to keep running pretty much the same throughout the pandemic.
I left you last time at the end of week one. I drove home and had a weekend where I chilled and revised my advanced life support. On the Sunday night I drove up to the hotel (and paid for an extra night) so I could have a relaxed start to the week. First thing Monday morning we discussed trust pathways, including primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) and hyper-acute stroke unit (HASU), along with referral pathways including falls and vulnerable adult and child referrals. In the afternoon we had managers from local stations, who were able to discuss the NQP two year transition pathway. In all honesty, it sounded a bit scary. They produced large folders of evidence from previous NQPs, however we were reassured that small and steady CPD evidence will get us to the right stage to progress at the end of the two years. In between all of this, we practiced in small groups for our ALS assessment later on Tuesday.
Week two, day two rolls around. No one is excited. In the small groups we have been practicing in, we completed our ALS assessment. Although the assessment was stressful, it was not much different from every previous ALS assessment I have completed previously and most people passed. The people who did not pass were only stopped by minor mistakes and were given the opportunity to retake later on in the week. There was no shaming, all the instructors were lovely and supportive and clearly do not want people to fail, but want to see them be competent on the road. Once all assessments were completed, we went back to the hotel and most of us had a nap! We then went out (in groups no larger than six) for dinner and possibly a small bev in celebration.
Day three was heavy, but incredibly interesting!! We had a very important manager (possibly Tactical Incident Command) come to speak to us about first resource on scene. He is so incredibly knowledgeable and extremely responsible for all the likely and unlikely events that could happen whilst we are at work. This involved major incidents and hostile environments. I was able to revise METHANE reports, first and second vehicle roles and triaging. He discussed with us scary chemical things (that I had no idea about), railways, fires, mass casualty management and so much more. It was so heavy, but really useful. Also, slightly terrifying and not going to lie, made me wonder why this is my chosen profession. He did remind us that this is all extremely rare, although we do see major incidents quite frequently. Everyone is rusty, you just had to do your best. We also had a short chat with our hazardous area response team (HART) and looked at their equipment so we knew what we could use them for. Wednesday was an extremely heavy, long day, but really, really useful.
Day four was also interesting, we completed conflict resolution (which was different to what I did at uni so I would definitely recommend doing it if it is offered to you!). We discussed infection, prevention control (IPC), including the recent COVID changes and we did a self directed session where we discussed many, many things that we were wobbly on. Funnily enough, although everyone seems confident, people really do have areas of weakness, including ECGs, maternity, drugs, abdo and chest pain. Being able to add your worries to the list really helped, and we all hugely benefited from this session. On the final day we discussed the ePCR, completed ALS and manual handling reassessments and closed the course.
With that, we were done! We had local inductions and third manning shifts booked for the following week and we were ready to go into operations. We had our blue light driver training booked in for three weeks time, and until that point most shifts were third manning, with the odd attend only shift here and there. I felt extremely rusty, and terrified, but ready to go onto the next challenge! Make sure you come back for my next posts on driver training and my time on the road! Thanks for reading!
My Journey into Becoming a Newly Qualified Paramedic: Read the whole series here:
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