Pathway to paramedicine

Author: Menios Constantinou

Photographer: All images used with permission.

As a member of the Rural Fire Service, Michelle Guinane knows a thing or two about emergency situations. Since joining the RFS as a junior volunteer at the age of 12 and becoming an operational member at 16, she’s had her fair share of callouts.

“There have been a few fires and grass fires but most of the callouts I’ve been to have actually been highway car accidents, where the RFS has been the closest first responder resource available,” says Michelle, 18, who volunteers for the Mulloon and Wallaroo brigades.

It was on the scene of one of these accidents that she first became interested in paramedicine.

“Seeing the paramedics and their role really piqued my interest, and I guess there’s a whole bunch of smaller reasons that have added up and led me to the idea of becoming a paramedic. I also work as a lifeguard, so I’ve been lucky enough to be exposed to a few different emergency areas, and I used to watch the show Ambulance Australia, too. I thought that looked pretty cool!”

Michelle commenced her Bachelor of Nursing/Bachelor of Paramedicine at ACU’s Canberra Campus in 2023, having completed the Uni Step-Up program while studying at Braidwood Central School. She also secured an ACU Accommodation Scholarship, designed to improve access to university for students who face barriers to higher education.

“I absolutely love my course – especially learning about paramedicine, which is what I came here for,” she says. “I think what makes it even better is living here on campus and having good friends to study with, because we’re interested in similar things and have similar goals. It has definitely made being away from home a bit easier.”

Home away from home

Michelle was part of the first cohort of students to move into ACU’s new on-campus Blackfriars Residence, which contains 42 fully furnished studio apartments.

Purpose-built for university students, the apartments include a kitchenette, ample storage, and an inbuilt study area.

Michelle on RFS patrol with her sister Ernie.

“It’s all quite flash,” says Michelle, who was raised on her family’s property near Braidwood, a small rural town in the Southern Tablelands region of NSW.

“You can really tell the apartment has been designed to facilitate the uni lifestyle, and the common areas are amazing. It can get quite vibrant at night but at the same time it’s very homely, and cooking in the kitchen makes you feel like you’re on Masterchef.”

As an ACU scholarship holder, Michelle benefits from a 20 per cent reduction in accommodation fees – a huge help for the first-year student, who juggles her course with part-time jobs to sustain her studies. As well as her role as a lifeguard and swimming teacher at Queanbeyan pool, she has also worked as residential advisor at ACU.

“The scholarship has really helped because the reduced rent means I can spend a little less time working, meaning there’s more time to focus on my studies,” she says. “It makes budgeting a lot easier, and planning, too. I’ve got a lot on my plate and being able to manage everything can get a bit tricky, so every little bit helps.”

Her neighbours at the Blackfriars Residence are from diverse backgrounds, with several international students and people from all over Australia.

“It’s great because people share things from their own hometowns and their own cultures, and that was quite nice early on when we were all nervous because it acted as a good conversation starter,” she says.

Nowadays, the nervousness has been replaced with excitement at finding a new group of friends.

“I still really miss my family, and I’ll call my dad quite often with a question like, ‘How do I cook that chicken dish?’ or something like that. But I’ve also found that living here on campus, I kind of created my own community. I’ve made friends here that I can see being friends for life.”

Focused on the future

As for her future career goals, Michelle has her gaze set firmly on becoming a paramedic, with a plan to gain experience in diverse environments.

“I guess the plan is try a bit of everything and find what suits me along the way,” she says. “That might be working at bigger hospital in Canberra or Sydney, and maybe somewhere smaller like Goulburn or even Braidwood as well.”

And while her experience as a lifeguard and volunteer firefighter will stand her in good stead for the high-pressure environments faced by paramedics, she is careful not to get ahead of herself.

“Paramedicine is a challenging profession, and I don’t want to go into it thinking it’ll be easy,” Michelle says. “Based on the scenarios I’ve been in, I’ve found that when there is an emergency, I’m able to keep myself calm and just focus on solving the issue at hand. Hopefully that means I have what it takes to be a good paramedic one day, but for now I’m just focused on my studies. I know I have a lot left to learn.”

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