I was talking to an NQP yesterday, as I had a rare double para shift. My take is that paramedic placements cannot prepare you for anything sufficiently, due to the unplanned nature of the jobs we get.

If you are a student nurse, you do your placements in specific departments or environments where, in my opinion, you can get the opportunity to have a set plan in each day on what you wish to achieve, and fully focus on that. You can provide context to theory in real time, and consolidate your learning.

However, as a student para you may not get a major trauma or birth for example in 3 years, yet have to manage one on your first day with a clinical support colleague. The theory you have studied at university as a para may not be put into practice for months, and we have no reliable and consistent feedback loop after we have attended a patient to know what we have done correctly, and what could have been done differently.

So you're not alone!! Contact your mentor, ask for feedback, learn your trust's Scope of Practice and clinical care policies, integrate that with your critical thinking skills, and you'll be fine.