Paramedic Student Interview – Alan Leahy

 

An interview with APC student Alan Leahy

 

Meet APC Diploma of Paramedical Science student Alan Leahy. He talks us through his paramedical training experiences and reveals his future career goals in the prehospital emergency health care sector.

You’ll find some real hope and inspiration in his story; as well as hearing about some of the challenges he had to overcome to keep pursuing his passion. From volunteer, to Diploma graduate, to London Ambulance Paramedic, Bachelor degree, and finally Med School Emergency Doctor, Alan sets the bar for others to follow.

“I was actually watching ambulance UK and I thought I’d really love to do this as well as working with paramedics”

Having nearly 12 years experience in emergency response under his belt, Alan became further inspired after watching the UK TV show Ambulance. That’s it… he was well and truly hooked and decided he’d really like to do this line of work.

After committing to some research online, Alan decided to study with the Australian Paramedical College (APC) because eventually he wanted to go to university, however, he did not meet the academic requirements at the time.

“The reason I did this course was because I wanted to go to uni, but unfortunately I didn’t complete year 12” 

Facing another 12 months of further study – either back at school, completing a bridging course, or resitting his final school exam, Alan chose to study with APC because he knew the HLT51015 – Diploma of Paramedical Science could eventually get him into university.

“So I thought if I’m going to spend a year learning something, it may as well be something I want to do”

Alan decided if he was going to do spend a year learning something, it may as well be studying towards something he wanted to do. Of course everything is not always as easy as it seems; as Alan freely admits.

“There were times when my motivation for studying really went down, especially having kids and everything and having to work”

He admits that at times, balancing life as a father and husband as well as working, can get in the way of studying. The APC student success team noticed Alan was drifting away from his training schedule and quickly reached out to help him get back on track.

Looking towards the future, Alan has friends who are already working as London Ambulance Service Paramedics. He has set his sights on heading over to the UK to get essential on-road experience before returning to Australia to complete his Bachelor of Paramedic Science degree.

“Ultimately the goal would be to actually get my bachelors and become a state ambulance officer or paramedic, and then from there I might look at trying to use that to get into med school and actually become an emergency doctor” 

Follow in Alan’s footsteps.

 

Choose from three prehospital emergency health care qualifications.

HLT31115 – Certificate III in Non-emergency Patient Transport
HLT41115 – Certificate IV in Health Care
HLT51015 – Diploma of Paramedical Science

Study online, (we have an app too) and attend clinical workshops in most states.