The Australasian College of Paramedicine
The Australasian College of Paramedicine
Kerbside Conversations: Wayne Loudon
Welcome to Kerbside Conversations – the College’s podcast capturing authentic voices and stories from across the world of paramedicine.
In this conversation, Wayne Loudon shares his extensive experience in paramedic practice and the importance of community engagement in modern healthcare. He discusses the evolution of paramedic roles, the significance of building relationships within communities, and the need for a broader understanding of health that includes cultural perspectives. Wayne emphasizes the role of community members in emergency situations and the necessity of training local responders to enhance healthcare delivery in remote areas.
Laura Hirello: All right. So we will get started by having you tell me what your name is, where you're from, and what your current sort of primary role is.
Wayne Loudon: So my name is Wayne Loudon. I started my career in Queensland Ambulance 2007, so a long time ago, in Brisbane. I haven't really travelled beyond Brisbane. in that time, done a variety of roles. think I've done at one stage every frontline role within that state ambulance service. And then a few years ago, I decided to move across to academia, moved to Queensland University of Technology where I initially studied in the first paramedic program in Queensland. Went back and took over the lead of that program for the last couple of years. And then in about three months ago, I moved back to the state ambulance service and clearly institutionalized and moved into a role that's titled executive manager of community response program, which remains to grow into what it needs to be.
Laura Hirello: And so can you tell me more about the role of community in sort of modern and emerging paramedic practice? What should we be paying attention to?
Wayne Loudon: I'm still learning a lot about it. So I mean, I've spent most of my career in the critical care space, I had to stroke research. And so the community aspect here has always come up, know, it's important that people, the community really recognizes the stroke, for example, and they have a role to play. I think ambulance services and QAS is no different, grew from a community and a volunteer basis back very in the early days. And then, you know, my perspective is kind of shifted away from that for a period of time, we got very focused on the professional paramedic. But increasingly, we've realized, the first chain in any, whether it's stroke, whether it's cardiac arrest, whether it's bleeding, is actually the person that's there on the scene. So it's actually the community. And the other side of community is that we, if we talk about remote Queensland and remote Australia, in order to staff those parts of the country, we're far better off training the people that have grown up there, that live there, that are linked in with the community, because they're going to stay there, they're going to contribute, and they understand the community better.
Wayne Loudon: You know, the old saying is, if you've seen one community, you've seen one community. So I'm doing a bit of a learning curve in terms of how volunteers work within QAS It's slightly different. There's some services that have obviously heavily first responder or community-based response. Queensland has had a long history with first responders and operational volunteers. But now it's going, OK, well, what more can we give these volunteers and what other space do they contribute to? We've seen other states of us in cardiac arrest and and responder apps like that so it's going well how do we that's that part of the chain that we probably need to shore up? Just to contribute to the rest of the chain of care and everything So what it ultimately ends up looking like we don't know yet and there's a lot of people working in the space, you know so it's really it's a lot of learning for me to then figure out what I give back To that, you know makes a worthwhile change. So yeah.
Laura Hirello: Yeah, and I feel like from the sounds of it, there are ways of thinking about community and there are two streams of thought. We can actually look at the community and the people who are living there and the community centers and the resources that they have. But then we can also look at community in terms of the health care community that exists within these places. And I had talked to people earlier about this rural remote versus urban, particularly in Queensland, and the importance of leveraging not just the sort of medical care that's in a community, but the actual people themselves.
Wayne Loudon: I think last night at the dinner that talked about healthcare through a lens of it's not just about the Anglo-Saxon version of healthcare, which is very physical-based healthcare. I started looking at the community and all the welfare aspects and social aspects to health. And that's a big part of those communities because you need to have that to see one engagement with healthcare and trust of healthcare in some of our communities. But really see the full benefit of what
Wayne Loudon: People view as real health and that's not necessarily what I've grown up thinking of as health. But there's a lot to learn there, I think, from other cultural groups and other communities about what health actually is.
Laura Hirello: Yeah, and we know that paramedics tend to, or like oftentimes will move around quite a bit sort of throughout their careers between countries, between regions, that sort of thing. Do you have any sort of advice or guidance for people who are new to an area who are looking to sort of ingratiate themselves with a community?
Wayne Loudon: I think they need to, it's about going in and sitting down and just having a chat with people, having a yarn with people and getting them to tell you what their community is about. As an organization, we could absolutely do a package on, hey, you're going to this community and we've done some research and this is what you need to give that community. That's not going to work. You need to go into the community, sit down with those people and form the relationships because it's all about relationships. There's going to be distrust initially when you're a new person.
Wayne Loudon: So you've got to prove to them, they don't have to prove anything to you, that you're coming in with the right intentions because then otherwise they're just not going to reach out to you. And that's going to be different in every location. asking the person that was there before you isn't necessarily the right way to do it or getting the package off to your organization. It's up to you to go out and sit down with everyone.
Laura Hirello: I know, at least for me in Canada, it was always about having tea. So you go to somebody's house who's elderly, and they make you tea, and they try to feed you. And sometimes the most appropriate way to care for that person is to accept that, even if it feels like you're not the one doing the caring in that situation. And so our final question that we leave people with, it sounds like you sort of made your way through academia and now into management. So I don't know how long it's been since you've worked a night shift. But what was your sort of guilty pleasure on night shifts to help you get through those wee morning
Wayne Loudon: Look, it has been a while, but it was like everyone else it was coffee. I was talking to someone yesterday and I think at the peak of some of our busiest night shifts when I was in the operations supervisor role or within the clinical hub in Queensland, and I had to stay out for the 12 hours. And I think I reached five coffees in a shift. Not very healthy. But it got me through.
Laura Hirello: Exactly, whatever gets you there. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me, and I hope you have a great time at the conference.
Wayne Loudon: Thank you very much.