Published on 29 November 2018
Each of them a lifesaver – meet the University of Sunderland’s first cohort of paramedics on graduation day.
The team of freshly University-trained North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) paramedics are already back at work helping to care for the sick and injured across the region.
The University and NEAS worked in partnership to develop the bespoke specialist training programme which is now helping train the new recruits.
The first 19 started their course on 8 September 2016 and graduated on Thursday this week during the Academic Awards at the Stadium of Light.
The students are employed by NEAS, allowing them to balance studying with working their operational shifts. And the graduating cohort say they could not have asked for a better two years to prepare them for their new roles.
Watch our video to see just how happy the team was to graduate.
NEAS worked with the University to develop the programme through the Corporate and Professional Education team who are responsible for bringing together employers with Faculty expertise to develop bespoke programmes.
Victoria Duffy is the Programme Leader and Senior Lecturer in Clinical Skills in the University’s Faculty of Health Sciences and Wellbeing.
She said: “We are delighted to see our inaugural cohort graduate and register as paramedics.
“As a group they have worked extremely hard and achieved huge successes, both personal and professional and as a programme team it has been a pleasure and a privilege to watch them grow and develop into autonomous practitioners.
“They are a credit to the Ambulance Service and have set a fantastic precedent for Paramedicine at the University of Sunderland. I am proud to lead this programme and immensely proud of our graduating cohort.”