Paramedic students Ulster University Derry
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.
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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