Rhys Hillsley flew into a frigidly cold Saskatoon this week while his home country of Australia continues to battle devastating bushfires.
The paramedic student from South East Queensland’s Griffith University is completing his first clinical placement through a program with Saskatoon’s Medavie Health Services West (MHS West).
“When the opportunity came up for me this year, it was just something I couldn’t turn down. Such a unique experience and so rewarding so far,” Hillsley said on Thursday.
“Well, I’m really hoping to really become a better paramedic and a better person. Those are the two things I’m really focusing on. I want to be able to do as good of a job as I can once I graduate. And this is all part of that practice, the exposure and experience that I’ll need. And it’s so rewarding for me, having limited time and limited experience so far.”
He said the current wildfire situation in Australia has made it difficult to be away from home.
“When I initially left … well, there’s always bushfires going on in Australia. There’s always some around. It’s just nature. That’s what happens. But nothing to this magnitude,” Hillsley said.
“It’s quite surreal really, to see the pictures coming through of all the smoke and the devastation that’s happening over there and for it to be my own hometown, it makes it quite difficult to be here. And I feel bad for the people experiencing it back home and my heart goes out to them and all the emergency services people helping out there. They’re heroes, really.”
He plans to use this added pressure and stress to his advantage while in the program.
“I always hold myself to a high standard and I want to be able to do anything to the best of my ability so coming here, I definitely felt pressure outside of the wildfires to perform to the best of my ability, outside of the comfort of my own home,” Hillsley said.
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“Definitely, with it all going on now and not being able to be there to support my family and in any way I can for local communities, it’s put pressure on me a little bit more to make the most of my opportunity here.”
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He said adapting to the cold Saskatchewan conditions will help him be a better paramedic in any situation he’s thrown into, including the bushfires back home.
“It’s such a different environment. But that’s a good thing because it’s something that I can take away from it. Learning to adapt to different situations,” Hillsley said.
“I’m hoping to boost my paramedic skills to the best of my ability, my patient interaction and everything because I want to be able to take care of patients in the best way I can possible … This is the first time I’ve actually flown overseas so it’s definitely a unique experience and I’m hoping to end up a better person at the end of it.”
This has been a three-year partnership between MHS West, Griffith University, and Latrobe University. Over 20 paramedic students from Australia have come to Saskatoon as part of their on-the-job training.
“We love having their students. They come here. They’re so excited to learn and experience the simple things that we take for granted, like Saskatoon berry jam,” said Bill Weeks, the assistant deputy chief of operations at MHS West.
“Our staff is always excited to have them. We try to get them involved in things that are outside of work, whether it’s a day trip out to go snowmobiling or I know Rhys is looking forward to going snowboarding over at Optimist Hill. We just want to get them totally ingrained. We bring them in. We make them a part of our family.”
The three paramedic students who recently landed will be in Saskatoon for the next six weeks.
“For most of them, it’s their very first clinical experience so they’re getting a lot of chance to see real patients for the first time,” Weeks said.
“It’s not just all 911 emergency. They’ll hopefully be spending a day in with Saskatchewan Air Ambulance flying. They’re going to get to see different parts of Saskatchewan, different types of patients, totally different environment than what we have here.
“We just want to make sure that they get a good start to their clinical practice by seeing so much that we have to offer and that they can see and then take that back and apply it to their future clinical experiences back in Australia.”
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