Not all nurses wear blue – pre-hospital nursing

I have always wanted to be a nurse, I worked in a care home while I was at school and began my nursing journey in 1997 at Glasgow Caledonian University, where I completed a dipHE in nursing. I then completed a post graduate BSc while in my first post in a cardiology ward. The first 7 years of my career were spent working in cardiology, coronary care and medical high dependency. I then moved to Intensive Care in 2007 where I worked as a staff nurse and then a charge nurse. I had a keen interest in education and development of others and the impact of families in the intensive care environment. As part of my MSc I wrote a paper and presented a poster on attitudes towards children visiting the intensive care and my topic for dissertation was focused on open visiting. Though these were in the beginning stages of implementation it was soon halted by COVID and all visiting was stopped. 

Although I loved my post in ICU I had always had an interest in pre-hospital care. When I found out that there were nurses working in the ambulance service, I was on a mission. 

In 2021, I applied for and accepted a job as a trainee ANP in primary and urgent care within the Scottish ambulance service. My uniform changed from scrubs to a green uniform and boots, the environment from clean and quiet to having muddy boots and noisy houses. 

I was taught to response drive and put through the remaining modules I needed to be an ANP. I work as part of a team made of advanced paramedic practitioners and advanced nurse practitioners but overall, I work in a large team of paramedics, technicians and ambulance care assistants to name a few who have all welcomed me as part of their team. 

I now attend patients on my own, occasionally a crew will have requested the car to attend or it will have been triaged as suitable for the AP car to attend, with the aim of keeping those who can to stay at home with treatment or referred through local pathways. Where it is an emergency call, I would be sent as a first response and a crew will follow after, but the majority of the time I work autonomously, however I still have options to call and speak to others such as colleagues, ED consultants and GPs where I need to. I have continued to participate in the facilitation of learning with nursing, medical and paramedic students and continue to teach on immediate life support courses. Finally, I have developed an interest in the role of families and friends in the pre-hospital context and intend to research this some more.

Although my role is mainly based in primary and urgent care, there are nurses in various roles such as critical care, retrieval and trauma teams, neonatal care and management. 
It has been a big learning curve moving to the pre-hospital environment and into advanced practice, but it has been a great journey so far!