Internships/Ride Alongs/Sit-Ins in Australia

[Patria O Muerte]

Whats going on guys

I'm an EMT-B working in the 911 FDNY EMS system in Manhattan. I have a little over 3 years in EMS experience, 1 year (and counting) in Manhattan and 2 years in Queens, all in the FDNY EMS system.

I'm a college student as well and I am starting to plan out where I want to study abroad and what I want to do. I thought, since I'll be living in another country for an entire semester, it would be interesting to see how EMS works there. Right now I'm leaning heavily toward Australia for my school program and I don't know much about their EMS system. I'm under the impression that they only hire Paramedics, but I'm not looking to be hired.

Does anyone know of any way that I could perhaps do some kind of internship or sit-in with an Australian EMS company/service? Ride-alongs would be ideal but I know with the reality of insurance these days it may not be possible. Would it be helpful to write to them inquiring about this kind of stuff? Are there any Australian EMS providers willing to comment or help me out?


Thanks a lot.

 

[Lady_EMT]

Ask Mr. Brown. He's from the land down unda', and should be able to point you in the right direction. He may wander to this point eventually.

If you do go to Australia, look online to see if you can find any contact information for companies in the area you're visiting. Email them, and discuss with them what you want to do, and what you're thinking of doing in the future. I'm sure they would be willing to help. Only problem I can see is that I don't think your certs will carry over water, so you'd probably only be able to observe.

I'm not 100% positive, though.

Good luck!! I'd love to go see EMS in another part of the world, see what it's like.

 

[Handsome Robb]

Brown is from New Zealand. Melclin and The_negro_puppy are both Australians.

 

[the_negro_puppy]

Whats going on guys

I'm an EMT-B working in the 911 FDNY EMS system in Manhattan. I have a little over 3 years in EMS experience, 1 year (and counting) in Manhattan and 2 years in Queens, all in the FDNY EMS system.

I'm a college student as well and I am starting to plan out where I want to study abroad and what I want to do. I thought, since I'll be living in another country for an entire semester, it would be interesting to see how EMS works there. Right now I'm leaning heavily toward Australia for my school program and I don't know much about their EMS system. I'm under the impression that they only hire Paramedics, but I'm not looking to be hired.

Does anyone know of any way that I could perhaps do some kind of internship or sit-in with an Australian EMS company/service? Ride-alongs would be ideal but I know with the reality of insurance these days it may not be possible. Would it be helpful to write to them inquiring about this kind of stuff? Are there any Australian EMS providers willing to comment or help me out?


Thanks a lot.

Hi, I came here after your PM. Let me start of by saying that EMS in Australia is completely different to the United States.

Generally each state in Australia has one Ambulance Service responsible for providing pre-hospital care in the state. These are funded and run by the respective state governments.

We dont have EMT's or EMT-I's as part of our model. Most states run two levels of paramedic. My state has Advanced Care Paramedic (ACP) and Intensive Care Paramedic (ICP), with 2 x ACPs (or ACP + student) on an ambulance and ICPs in a car. I am training to be an ACP which involves 2.5 years of on the job training and assessments. I am coming up to 2 years on road.

ACP's are generally in between an EMT-I and EMT-P in the US. We dont intubate, pace, cardiovert or use drugs such as amiodarone or adenosine.
However we start IV's, use LMAs , OPAs and NPAs, use drugs such as adrenaline, morphine and midazolam, glucose 10%, normal saline.

If you come and study in Australia you probably wouldn't be able to get an 'internship' per se but depending on which city you live in, if you contacted the relevant Ambulance service you would at least be able to get a few ride along shifts as an observer.

Call volume depends on where you work. I work in Brisbane (3rd largest city in Aus) and needless to say we are moslty pretty busy. We do get the occasional quiet times when we might get a few hours of downtime at the station.

As for the type of work? coming from NYC you might find it boring. Australia is a very safe country with not much trauma going on. Most of our calls are the usual medical - Short of breath/DIB, chest pain, nausea and vomiting etc.

If you have any questions fire away. I can probably even help you with info on the different universities.

 

[Melclin]

I don't think you will be able to get a ride along here.

There are insurance, OH&S and patient privacy issues. Student HCPs and occasionally press are the only people that ride along to my knowledge.

That said I don't see that there is any harm in contacting the service and asking.

 

[medicdan]

OP, bring patches or insignia, for if nothing else, a patch exchange.

 

[Lady_EMT]

Brown is from New Zealand. Melclin and The_negro_puppy are both Australians.

Herpa Derp.

I'm going to go back to lurking now.

 

[jamesm]

In Australia our EMT-B is a Cert IV in Emergency Medical Response and in the State I'm in Queensland it's code is 30714QLD. AREMT is the Australasian Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians. I also believe but can't be sure that we go by a system of P1 P2 P3 P4, I know P3 is Advance Care Paramedic, and P4 is Intensive Care Paramedic. Also in Queensland they only hire p3 and p4 however if you complete your student paramedics traineership with Queensland Ambulance Service you can work as a Paramedic I think is P2.

A quote I found

"Certificate IV is the basic life support level which is regarded as the minimum entry level for emergency work in most statutory ambulance services. Only those possessing Diploma are advanced life support providers."

Have a look at this website

(I can't post link but Google 'Australasian Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians' and click on registration it shows you information on US and Australian EMT scale.

Also contact St John Ambulance as some states use St John as their ambulance service for the whole state. I know also some minining companies use EMT-B's becuase I should be doing my EMT-B next year with Mine Rescue.

Edit: I also know of a US Paramedic doing an exchange with Queensland Ambulance Service, I met him at the Queensland Rescue Comp."

 

[McGoo]

I know that here in WA the only people that do ride alongs are nursing and med students. You could try and ask, but I wouldn't be hopeful.

 

[FloridaEMT]

Glad you posted this, I'm looking into spending some time in Oz late next year with a friend whose in school in Melbourne and was wondering this myself.

 

[nswAU]

Florida EMT, I would say that your chances of getting a ride along with the state statutory ambulance service in Melbourne (victoria), Ambulance Victoria is near zero.

Each state has one single state wide ambulance service "run" publicly by each respective state and their state health service (excl WA and NT who contract St John)

The whole system here is sort of state wide "integrated", each city does not have their own ambulance company like as in the USA.

The best you could do is perhaps volunteering with St John Ambulance, this organization does not run a ambulance service (with the exception to WA and NT) they do more "event coverage".

Nonetheless, there is no harm in trying to contact them. Keep in mind however that the usual minimum level for most regular ambulance staffing in vic and most of Aus is a dual paramedic crew (exception for rural areas, may have 1 paramedic and 1 driver, or have a first responder crew arrive before the medic crew etc) and of course rapid response cars/bikes often staffed with a single mica/icp medic

ambulance.vic.gov.au

^^ link to Ambulance Vic site.

 

[para344]

Ambulance Victoria has a fairly strict policy on observer shifts (what we call "ride alongs"). They are usually restricted to students (as arranged by their respective universities), press, internal staff (non-operational), and the occassional politician (yeah...).

That said, if you are employed overseas and wanting to see what happens in the antipodes, you could try the research angle. Plenty of our guys go overseas and visit other EMS providers in the name of research to write a paper or article.

Food for thought.

Paul