Six St John NT paramedics have completed the first major stage of their two-year Intensive Care Paramedic Training Pathway, designed to strengthen advanced clinical capability and build a sustainable critical care workforce for the Territory.
In just six weeks, each intern completed 240 hours of face-to-face training, more than 20 simulation and scenario blocks, formal written and practical assessments, and multi-agency operational exercises.
Training covered a broad range of high-acuity emergencies, including major trauma, cardiac arrest, stroke, sepsis, paediatric and obstetric emergencies, and complex respiratory conditions.
Interns also practised advanced procedures used when patients are critically unwell and standard treatment may not be enough, including:
Front of neck airway access
Finger thoracostomy to relieve life-threatening pressure in the chest
Video laryngoscopy and advanced airway management
Mechanical ventilation
Complex ECG interpretation
Newborn and paediatric resuscitation.
As the program progressed, the focus shifted from learning individual skills to bringing them together in increasingly complex simulations, requiring interns to assess patients, make rapid decisions, lead teams and adapt as conditions changed.
The Intensive culminated in Operational Readiness Week, where interns applied their training through realistic multi-agency exercises involving vertical rescue, road crash rescue, water-based emergencies and aeromedical retrieval.
NSW Ambulance Critical Care Paramedic Sam Immens, who led development and delivery of the Intensive, spent around 250 hours developing the course before training began.
“The six weeks were designed to give the interns a strong and verified foundation in Intensive Care Paramedic practice,” Mr Immens said.
“They have been tested across formal assessments, technical skills, complex simulations and operational scenarios, and they now move into supervised real-world practice with a demonstrated baseline.
“What has stood out most is not only the development in their clinical skills, but the way they assess complex situations, communicate, make decisions and work together under pressure.”
The interns will now undertake theatre and anaesthetics placements, including supervised airway procedures, before moving into a 24-week operational placement across Darwin and Alice Springs.
St John NT CEO Abigail Trewin said completing the six-week Intensive was a significant step for both the interns and the service.
“Having six more paramedics progressing with this level of advanced training strengthens the clinical capability available across our service and, ultimately, in the community,” Ms Trewin said.
“They have spent six intensive weeks developing and testing skills for some of the most complex and critically unwell patients our crews respond to, and they now take that foundation into the next stage of supervised practice.
“For the Territory, this means we are continuing to grow the number of clinicians with advanced skills who can support our teams and provide higher-level care when it is needed most.”
