So you want to be a paramedic? First of all I take my hat off to you, what a noble goal.
Secondly let me tell you what you may not know.
One day you will save a life and that will be a significant moment in yours – it will give you a feeling of pride that very few get to experience. There will be no banners or parade, though, and the very next day the phone will ring or the radio will call and you continue.
You will continue to learn and grow with every call, each showing you how little you knew when you became fully qualified, each teaching you how to deal with what they never thought to teach you.
One day, though, you will realise that you have forgotten many of the lives you have saved, not because you don’t care but because care from carers is expected and you have become a carer.
Your patients become heavier, complaints louder, hallways narrower and the many hours away from your friends family, longer and longer.
You will eventually forget why you became a person who works in a hazardous environment for little reward until you meet a stranger who looks at you and says, thank you for what you do, and then you will remember.
Chantal Peel, national paramedic
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