A JOB?!

I’VE ONLY GONE AND GOT A BLOODY JOB.

I start my induction with Associated Ambulance on August 21st, they’re a company based in Edmonton that operate in the surrounding area.

I’ll be a principal care paramedic (PCP) until I sit the COPR (Canadian Organization of Paramedic Regulator) exam in November. At the moment I’m a provisionally registered advanced care paramedic (ACP) - I apologise for all the acronyms - and I’ll be generally registered after this exam. Basically that means most company’s will employ you as a PCP until this time because you cant work as a lone paramedic on a provisional registration. A PCP is the equivalent of a technician back in London but with IV/IO skills. I think working as a PCP for 3 months will be a good way to gain confidence and learn the Canadian ways without being the senior clinician. Less chances to f*** up.

I’ve decided to take on a core/flex rota, this basically means you go to wherever it is you’re working and you stay there. So I’ll do a 4 on 4 off rota but I’ll stay in the on-site accommodation between shifts. It means I can work slightly further from home without the daily commute. My PCP position is likely to be based in a small village called Ma-Me-O Beach (if you Google it, you’ll find in 2016 it had a population of 110), I genuinely think there were more people living on my street in Putney than that. It’ll be a total change from the hustle and bustle of London but I’ll welcome the change. It’s just under a 3 hour drive from Calgary where I’ll be living so I’m currently in the process of getting a SUV (look at me, who am I?!). Once I complete the exam I’m hoping to get a spot as an ACP at a town called Rocky Mountain House (bigger with a population of over 6k). This is what I moved here for, to work around the Rockies and just experience a different side to being a paramedic.

I’m itching to get back to work, mostly because I’m a little nervous that the longer I’m not practicing, the less I’ll remember when I eventually return!! But I’m sure it’ll be like riding a bike (just with 1000x more responsibility and pressure, yay).

I’m currently undertaking the 36 hours of pre induction online learning. Then I’ll head over to Edmonton to complete my 4 day induction in a couple weeks time. Oh I should probably mention the interview process for those who might want to follow in my footsteps in the future. I had a 30 minute teams interview (whilst at a hostel in Montreal, how professional), they asked the basic questions about my previous experience and a few scenario questions about leadership and conflict. After this I was asked to provide the total number of hours I’ve completed as a paramedic (almost 10k how mad is that!!!!) so they could figure out which ‘step’ I would enter on their pay scale. And that was that! I was given a conditional offer and once all the classroom stuff is done I’ll sign a full time contract.

I’ll post more as and when it all happens but this is the first step into work in Canada. I can confirm, they don’t make it easy but I’m hoping it’ll all be worth it in the end.

For now, I’m off to Vancouver Island on my last week long vacation for a while. Watch out for that post in a weeks time!

Ciao for now

Em x