Loading stretchers, stitching wounds: Alberta paramedic students get hands-on EMS training

Front-line workers are using National Paramedic Services Week as an opportunity to provide an up-close look at the life-saving skills and equipment EMS practitioners use each day on the job.

Alberta paramedic students spent the day Wednesday getting hands-on experience, learning what they need to know before heading into a real-life emergency.

“All the equipment here just makes everything so much more real, and more exciting just to get out there working,” said Jessica Wendland, a primary-care paramedic student at the Emergency Services Academy in Sherwood Park.

From loading a stretcher into an ambulance to practising stitching skills, the interactive day at the AHS North-West EMS Station in Edmonton gave paramedic students a glimpse at the real world.

“People don’t realize just how much training we bring when you call 911 and how much we’re capable to do,” said Ian Cowie, an incident response paramedic with Alberta Health Services (AHS).

“The really cool thing about emergency medical services is that people don’t realize just how diverse and expansive a career in EMS is.”

Cowie says paramedics are trained in advanced and specialized medicine.

“Lots of diversity in the work that we do,” he said. “Whether it be tactical EMS response, hazmat teams, mobile integrated health, for providing community care, so on so forth.”

Every call is different: AHS

Paramedics are the first to respond to emergency calls, and each day on the job can be very different.

“As a paramedic, you’ll start your shift by doing your truck checks, your readiness checks to ensure that everything in your unit is ready to go for an emergency,” Cowie said. “And then effectively you’re waiting for that 911 call to come in.”

Cowie, who’s also a public education officer at AHS, says it’s important to be prepared for any eventuality.

“So the 911 call will come in, you’ll get those dispatch notes giving you a rough idea of what it is you’re responding to,” he explained. “And once you get to that event, it’s your job as a paramedic to effectively create a differential diagnosis and identify what’s going on with these patients and then develop a treatment plan to adequately manage that event.

“In some cases, we are able to fully treat these people and leave them at home under the care of their personal physicians. And then in other circumstances, we will stabilize them and transport them to an emergency department for further definitive care.

“There’s still a common misconception that when you call 911 for an ambulance, you get an ambulance driver that will show up, turn the lights on and drive you past the hospital, when really it’s practitioners, medical practitioners that are showing up to provide that help.”

Wendland, who’s about to begin her ambulance practicum, says she’s already getting a glimpse of just how hard paramedics work.

“Just from the instructors that we’ve had come into our school after working a 12-hour shift,” she recounted. “I think they really need to be recognized for all the hard work they do and just the resiliency that they have.”

She’s excited to put her skills to test in the real world.

“I just really hope I can touch and make a positive impact on as many people as I can,” she said.

National Paramedic Services Week runs until Saturday. The week’s national theme this year is “Help Us Help You.”