Like so many things in the job, you get exposed to many ways of other people doing various things. As you observe, or get shown how to and why, people do things in articular ways in the job, you get an idea of how you might best go about those when you develop your own style when qualified.

The best thing about Ollie, was his quiet and caring approach to treating the casualties, which was an absolute pleasure to observe. There was many a casualty that benefited immensely from the confidence that he instilled in them. He operated in very relaxed and calm manner, but could up the pace at a moments’ notice when the patient was at risk or deteriorating. The other thing that I really liked about Ollie, was his amazing sense of humour, which was not only cheeky, but sometimes really black, making some of the things I was now being exposed to, just that little bit more bearable.

Why so many questions?
There are a few vital things that a Paramedic / Ambulance Officer needs to develop to be
efficient in their career ……. Questioning techniques, visual observation, inter-personal skills, and experience. No amount of knowledge learned in an education institute can be
substituted for the experience of dealing with a vast variety of people, of differing
backgrounds, ages, cultures and in varying environments.
One thing we are good at, and that is asking questions.

This questioning regime, can in some cases, lead a casualty or person of concern, to become annoyed with the volume of questions that we ask.
What they don’t properly comprehend is the fact that until we met them for the first time
just now, we knew nothing about them at all. To be of any assistance within the mandate of our profession, we need to find out all that we possibly can so that we may be able to either work how to assist them, or direct them to services which may help. We do not know about what happened to them, how it happened, when it happened, has it happened before, how long did it go on for, how many times has it happened, has it been medically investigated, if so, was anything found, if so, what was it, did they receive information as to how to help themselves, have they followed those instructions? I guess you are starting to get the idea of what I am talking about.
We ask a lot of questions!

Other peoples’ history It’s quite comical when people start telling you all about their history, when much of it has nothing of relevance to what you are actually there for.
To many, they seem to think they are making some sort of impression on us because of their extensive medical history, and that they seem to have been collecting a barrage of doctors and specialists, whose names they launch at you and expect you to know each one of them.
Their enthusiasm is never dampened when you advise them that you have not heard of that particular surgeon or specialist. The same goes for the fact that many of the public think we work out of hospitals, when in fact we belong to ambulance stations.
There are a lot of misconceptions by the public, relating to how we operate and what we
can do for them, but we’ll get around to some more of those as we move along through more jobs an event sin my career.