The conference slog

I know this post is late. Its not that I don't have anything to talk about. Quite the opposite in fact. Things are so busy I have all kinds of things to talk about. Just not a lot of time or energy to get it all down.

Lets zoom back to 3 weeks ago. Time for some life updates. Justin got a job! Actually, he got a job + the opportunity for additional jobs. There were a couple of different avenues of paramedic-related work he has been looking into. Two of them have come to fruition at the same time. The actual job is Membership engagement & retention with the Australasian College of Paramedics (acronym'ed as ACP, which is kind of confusing for us as we associate ACP with Advanced Care paramedic). The potential job is for Fly-In, Fly-Out work with a company that does medical contracting.

The paramedic profession is organized a little differently in Australia compared to Canada. While there is a part of me that would love to expound on the differences in healthcare regulatory governance between Canada and Australia, that would probably only be interesting for me. Briefly, the Australasian College is a non-profit organization that represents & supports paramedicine in Australia. Its not an ambulance service, regulator or union. Its more like a non-profit lobby group. But for healthcare. Many of you know that when we were back in Canada, Justin was doing paramedic recruitment in addition to working ground ambulance. So this position seems like a pretty natural fit for him. He will get to see a ton of Victoria (the state we live in) and surrounding areas (South Australia & Tasmania), while also making all kinds of connections in the world of Australian paramedicine.

The ACP job is (roughly) a M to F, 9-5. It was a pretty typical hiring process with interviews & reference checks & whatnot. Because obviously there was no guarantee he would get the job, Justin has also been looking into some industrial medical work, specifically Fly-in, Fly-out (or FIFO, as we tend to call it). He already had an application in with a FIFO company when he heard about the ACP job, and was just waiting on some final medical courses before he would be eligible to start working. The nice thing about the FIFO option is that its completely casual. Once they hire you, you can chose contracts as they come up. All the contracts are different lengths (usually 1 to 3 weeks), so you get to decide how much you want to work and when.

He got the ACP job right before their annual paramedic conference, which was conveniently being held in Melbourne this year. I was already going to the conference to do some networking & catch up with some paramedic colleagues. The ACP team he is working with is almost completely remote. They had Justin come to the conference as well so he would have a chance to meet some of his new colleagues in person, as well as make connections with key players in the Australian Paramedic landscape.

During covid, most professional conferences moved to an online format. Overall, this is seen as one of the real limitations of online/remote work. Conferences don't really hold up in virtual formats. This is the first conference that I've been to since covid, and I forgot what an intense experience they can be. The conference was held at a hotel right in the CBD. So not too far in the grand scheme of things, but still about an hour commute on transit. Amidst the conference sessions and actual presentations, there were of course tea breaks and time for networking. Because Justin is in an outreach/engagement role, he was trying to meet as many people as possible and make good connections. Where I am new to the paramedic world in Australia, I was doing the same, albeit with a more research/academic focus. At the end of the day there are usually social events going on with varying degrees of formality. And while it may not be true for all professions, paramedic social events mean drinking. This all adds up to some exhausting and very long days.

During the conference we would leave the house together at 7 am, then go our separate ways when we got there. Justin was helping behind the scenes and doing logistics, while I was busy cold introducing myself to researchers and catching up with some of the Canadian paramedics who had made the trip over to Australia. We would meet up intermittently throughout the day and compare notes about who we had met and things we had learned about paramedicine in Australia. Then in the evening we would split up to go to our respective social/drinking events before finding each other again around 10 to head home. The days were very long, but we both got a ton out of the experience. We met tons of people, and made all kinds of good connections. I do think it helps that we are quite memorable. Not only is the Canadian accent a clear give away, but Justin is very easily identifiable, and my PhD story is always a big crowd pleaser.

The last day of the conference was a Friday. While there were no conference-related social events that night, we were invited out for margaritas to celebrate a friend's birthday. Not being in a position to turn down strengthening potential friendships, and because we like margaritas, of course we went out. And then on Saturday, after our three 16 hour days of networking and meeting people, we spent the day recovering: not leaving the house, not talking to anyone, just relaxing on our own. It was pretty fantastic.

While the conference was exhausting in the short term, overall it was actually quite energizing. Most of the time, doing research is boring. Its a lot of time in front of a computer, reading, planning, and working out logistics. Its really easy to forget that the whole of what you are doing is important, and will (hopefully) make a difference. Getting out there and talking to people about my PhD project re-ignited my excitement for it. It reminded me of why I am willing to put all those hours in front of a computer in - because I believe this work is important. It was also very nice to talk to paramedics for a change. Technically my PhD is in the school of psychology. While I work a lot with the paramedic department, most of my day to day interactions are with psychologists. They tend to be a bit more... high strung than paramedics are.

My feelings of re-invigoration with the work came at an excellent time, because after the conference I had one week left before I ran 4 days of pilot data collection. There are a ton of different ways to 'do' a PhD. The way my project is structured, I have one massive period of data collection that is front loaded in my PhD. Once that is done, all the work I do and papers I write will be based on the (heaps & heaps) of data I've collected. We sort of have one shot to make sure the protocol for the data collection is right. Once we start collecting data, you can't really change 'how' the study runs. So to test some of the more complicated/technical aspects of the study, we planned 4 days of pilot testing with some paramedic students. The testing just happened to fall two weeks after the paramedic conference. That meant after the conference I had just a week to finalize the logistics for both the participants and the team of volunteers that were helping out. Hopefully its more clear now why I've been too tired for blog writing.

Stay tuned for more backlogged stories of our adventures, including snorkeling, pilot testing, and Justin & I's first AFL experience!