Think medical school is hard? Try finishing it while you’re working as a paramedic

Out of the ambulance and into the hospital.

It’s a journey undertaken daily by thousands of patients in B.C.’s health-care system. It’s also the incredible path taken by two of the province’s newest doctors.

Marco Law and Peter Nguyen both graduated from medical school in May, earning their MDs.

Somehow, both of them managed to pull off that already difficult task while working as paramedics in the B.C. Ambulance Service.

“It was a lot easier than people would expect,” said Nguyen, who starts a residency in anesthesiology in Victoria next month.

“I found that when I was in medical school the first two years is pretty clinical so we would learn a lot from our lectures and slides … but working as a paramedic gave me context for what we were learning in class, so it was almost like learning while on the job as well.”

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Law, who already has a master’s degree in biomedical engineering, said that training fortunately prepared him for the workload.

“It’s not an easy journey,” he said.

Both men cited their time in the back of the ambulance in helping them transition from paramedic to doctor.

Nguyen added that the experience helped him choose his specialty as an anesthesiologist — where he’ll have to build trusting relationships with individuals undergoing operations.

“(You) make them feel comfortable and be able to build that rapport … when sometimes you are taking away their awareness with medication, sometimes you are taking their ability to breathe and they have to trust you to do that all for them, to be their advocate in the operating room,” he said.

“Which I found very similar to as a paramedic.”

Law is headed to Nelson where he’ll start a residency in family medicine, working in rural clinics and hospitals.

His experience working as a paramedic stationed in the Sea-to-Sky also helped influence that decision — though in a different way.

“You never know how the day is going to go, and I kind of like that unpredictability,” he said.

“I definitely want to do a bit of rural medicine to start, I like that very broad scope of being able to do a bit of everything.”

Long term, Law said he hopes to be able to transition into the policy side of the health-care system, where his experience working in both pre-hospital and hospital care settings could prove valuable.

And while both men move into a highly demanding new career, neither is quite ready to give up the blue uniform of the B.C. Ambulance Service quite yet.

“I’d love to stay employed with them and be able to pick up shifts here and there, mix it up,” Law said.

“It’s really tough to leave the job, I find it is so rewarding and it gives a very different perspective on medicine,” added Nguyen.

“I hope to work while in Victoria just a few shifts every month … but eventually I will have to close the chapter.”