Paramedic Mentorship Essay
The relationship between a mentor and mentee is one of molding and shaping. As pedagogical strategy that is deeply rooted in vocational education, mentoring adds culture and colour to the learning experience.
A lack of collaboration between universities and clinical placement adversely affects paramedic students in their readiness for their job as a graduate paramedic. Nursing transitioned from hospital to university in 1986, and still laments on the inconsistency and unpreparedness of its graduates (O'Meara, Hickson, & Huggins, 2016).
Combining theory and practice is necessary to equip students for their future role. After transferring paramedic education to universities, the student’s time for learning in the clinical setting has decreased, as has the paramedic lecturers’ supervision of students in direct patient care. The lecturers’ role focuses more on paramedic theory and research. While academia has offered enrichment of critical thinking and evidence base, the clinical supervision of students has become a responsibility of on road paramedics, who are often overwhelmed with patient duties, often insufficiently prepared for the supervisor role and unaware of educational goals. Coupled with differing agendas, and the heavy workload of paramedics, students are often left to themselves in their clinical placements. A situation …show more content…
The increasing numbers of paramedic programs and students have resulted in increased demand for services and contributed to growing pressure within the ambulance sector. Most mentors selected by QAS are lacking in the experience and knowledge about methods of active learning and teaching for their paramedic students on clinical placement. There are no formal goal directed collaborations between the university and the individual mentors for each paramedic student (Trede, McEwen, Kenny, & O'Meara,
A lack of collaboration between universities and clinical placement adversely affects paramedic students in their readiness for their job as a graduate paramedic. Nursing transitioned from hospital to university in 1986, and still laments on the inconsistency and unpreparedness of its graduates (O'Meara, Hickson, & Huggins, 2016).
Combining theory and practice is necessary to equip students for their future role. After transferring paramedic education to universities, the student’s time for learning in the clinical setting has decreased, as has the paramedic lecturers’ supervision of students in direct patient care. The lecturers’ role focuses more on paramedic theory and research. While academia has offered enrichment of critical thinking and evidence base, the clinical supervision of students has become a responsibility of on road paramedics, who are often overwhelmed with patient duties, often insufficiently prepared for the supervisor role and unaware of educational goals. Coupled with differing agendas, and the heavy workload of paramedics, students are often left to themselves in their clinical placements. A situation …show more content…
The increasing numbers of paramedic programs and students have resulted in increased demand for services and contributed to growing pressure within the ambulance sector. Most mentors selected by QAS are lacking in the experience and knowledge about methods of active learning and teaching for their paramedic students on clinical placement. There are no formal goal directed collaborations between the university and the individual mentors for each paramedic student (Trede, McEwen, Kenny, & O'Meara,