Thanks to an industry partnership with Acadian Ambulance, ECU paramedicine students can leap into high-octane work experience where they get exposure to international environments and a pathway to work in the US.
Acadian President Dr Justin Back explains the experience ECU students and graduates can get and why he wants them to be part of his team.
On a recent visit to ECU, Perth-raised President of Acadian Ambulance, Dr Justin Back explained the experience ECU students and graduates can get and why he wants them to be part of his team.
"You should see ECU students in the field and the way Americans react to them," Dr Back said.
"They've gone headlong into Hurricane Ida, they've gone headlong into their critical care programs, we've had Aussies operating in the air.
"ECU students are making the most of it. They're cheerful, they're curious, they're optimistic and they're appreciative of the opportunity."
A chance to boost your experience
Dr Back said the beauty of working with Acadian Ambulance was the opportunity to gain experience in a large scale of operation.
"We're running 700 ambulances a day, 13 rotary-wing, and five fixed-wing, aircraft a day," Mr Back said.
"When mass casualty events happen in the US, they happen on a very, very large scale.
"When hurricanes hit, they're not hitting a remote part of an uninhabited coastline, they're smashing multi-hundred-thousand or million-person cities.
"And so, what the Aussies have been able to experience in the US is emergency and disaster response on a scale that you’re only going to get in America.
"Perth is always going to be here. Come cut your teeth and experience something new," he said.
Mr Back is so impressed with ECU's paramedicine students he said there would be no caps if students wanted to come on clinical placement and be employed as graduates with Acadian Ambulance in the US.
"It's giving us this great injection of talent, that allows us to bring a different and new perspective to paramedicine."
In turn when ECU graduates return to Australia, they have a wealth of experience to put to use and share.
Ready to be a Paramedic?
If this article has got your heart racing (in a good way), check out Paramedicine studies at ECU.
