You aren't alone. To me, this was by far the most stressful thing about working in EMS (especially for the years before I had a GPS). Getting from the scene to the hospital is the hardest, since your alone and can't read a map. I can navigate very well with a map, but on my own in the driver seat I am really pretty terrible at navigating, for whatever reason.The advice above is good, just a couple extra tidbits:
You're right that GPS is falliable. Sometimes the routes are crazy, and sometimes it takes you through areas known to be heavy with traffic or stoplights, despite an easier route.
For sure dedicate some personal time (I spent a couple of Sunday afternoons doing this) to drive around your response area. Don't drive aimlessly - first make sure you know the main arteries, then areas with relatively high call volume (nursing homes, schools, community places, rough neighborhoods, whatever your community happens to have). Your goal is to ensure that if you can get from a scene to a main artery you will know where you are and how to get to the hospital from there. When you drive around, stop periodically and make sure you can generate one or preferably two routes from your location to the hospital, without consulting technology or a map. Double check, ideally with a real paper map. Practice the route to the hospital a few times, make sure you know the turns, etc.
I also did this as mental practice every time there was a call I wasn't going on (or a fire call, police call, whatever) - I'd google the location, try to run the route through my brain, then go from scene to hospital.
I was still only mediocre, but putting in that effort helped me relax and focus on more important things - driving safely and patient care mainly.
part B: Don't freak out if you get lost. You may feel like it's not acceptable, and you should try hard to avoid it, but I promise many of us have gotten lost. Now that GPS exists you should be able to sort of make headway in the correct direction, but if it fails: ask your partner in the back, admit it and pull over to consult a map, or worst case call dispatch.
Some housing developments in particular are simply indecipherable when looking for a scene, even with a navigator helping. It's embarrassing when the backup ambulance makes it to the code before you, but it happens, and panic and rushing only get you more lost. I speak from experience.....
