Paramedic students Ulster University Derry

Derry Journal

A cohort of history making students gathered at Ulster University’s Derry campus on Friday to celebrate becoming the first BSc Hons Paramedic Science students to complete the course.

Transcript

00:00again okay and everybody looking at the camera for me oh sorry okay this way everyone

00:11and then a big cheer one two three

00:15for me nice and happy big smiles

00:19perfect

00:24lovely

00:24okay

00:29okay

00:42how's it going

00:53paramedics was something you were always interested in

00:58mine is completely different to ben's so no no it wasn't definitely not

01:04my background is mental health and psychology um then was not interested in

01:09paramedicine at all and i used to work in a hostel still i actually do you can follow me

01:13and it's a great hostel for men with addictions and mental health and the paramedic came on

01:17scene and suggested i apply so i applied the last week that it was opened and haven't looked

01:22back since excellent and uh and yourself yeah i suppose for myself look as cliche as it is

01:29i've always wanted to be a paramedic since i was about seven and growing up caring for my

01:33grandmother back home in dublin and frequently would have encountered ambulances paramedics

01:38and health care professionals and so for me it was the relief and reassurance that they brought

01:42about them that i found quite influential and led me to go and pursue a career as a paramedic

01:47so i joined the order of malta when i was 11 as a cadet on the first aid and the next step was to

01:52come and do my paramedic training and so that's why i applied to university and haven't looked back

01:57since brilliant and he's both been living in the area as well like or he's been popping up you've

02:03been here

02:19and just how was the course anyway how'd you find it there

02:22i suppose um being the first cohort we're going to be pioneering the development and there's going

02:28to be challenges and it's going to be a dynamic change and shift in terms of the paramedic

02:32profession across northern ireland and for ourselves being the first cohort and we've

02:37been able to see the change that has happened and right across the service and within northern

02:43ireland for ourselves we're quite a small little group so we've worked well together with a good

02:47relationship with our lecturers and i look forward to seeing the development of future

02:52cohorts behind us as soon as nobody they rely on they sort of asked about like really

02:57i think we've always got that especially all of us are so close like it's really

03:01cheap to talk about a bomb but because we're going through this together

03:04and like we kind of got through it with quite the lectures as much as we have tortured them

03:08over the years and they have been brilliant and we can't forget to mention our mentors

03:17and it's one of the professions where you'll probably come into contact at some point in

03:20the future again as well like so those friendships will be maintained so and would you advise just

03:25finally would you advise anybody who's interested vic or thinking about it they apply as well

03:30yeah i'll definitely i think we we were saying ben had always known what he wanted to do i didn't

03:34know it the first week i had major imposter syndrome i didn't know anything about ambulances

03:39really and i went into it by hold it but i love working with people i love advocating for people

03:43so you don't always need to know 100 that you want to do this you just need to like working

03:48with people and have a real passion for it you can do it anybody can do it the anyhow

03:53brilliant thanks very much for your time

04:23so owen there was a long process that led up the uh the course of starting it mickey isn't that

04:40yeah yeah there were about 10 years of planning 10 years course started in september 21 so this

04:47is the first group of students who graduate now up until now the paramedics are all educated at

04:54northern ireland ambulance service trust and we've worked very closely with them so the students are

05:00now coming to university so they're all of the students who applied for jobs with the ambulance

05:07trust have all got jobs so they're all leaving here to go into jobs and uh how many students

05:12are involved in the course there's in this group of students there's 45 students

05:18so there's 40 students every year joined in year one and then there's 10 people can join

05:23from the ambulance service in year two so it is and uh is it a capacity for this coming year as

05:31well yeah yeah we have folded places this year we're getting we're still getting over 500

05:36applications for 40 places so we are so and is it from all around the guys i suppose it's from

05:42beyond so it's all people from northern ireland with some students from the republic of ireland so

05:50and they're students from right across northern and we've students from

05:54all parts of northern ireland

05:56um

06:02okay thank you and it's great to see everybody here today and this is truly a day of celebration

06:08but you know today wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for one person who's just

06:12standing over here now i know that he had lots of people to help him along the way and i know

06:17that owen would be the first person to say that but you can see here that we've got a very

06:22bagel you might just be missing a few ways and things but we felt that it was very important

06:28that i've had something so i want to just bring this to work right now

06:52just this little thing for you

06:55so

07:17right

07:20okay and then looking down towards me

Category

Transcript

Recommended