Rewarding regional career

• Peter Mulholland is retiring this week after 28 years with Ambulance Tasmania.

By Daisy Baker
September 28, 2022

Looking back on a career in health spanning more than 40 years, Scottsdale paramedic Peter Mulholland said caring for patients in regional areas has been one of the most rewarding aspects of his job.

Mr Mulholland will retire later this week, after 28 years of service with Ambulance Tasmania.

“Probably my most rewarding time in ambulance has been my work in rural areas in both Victoria and Tasmania, particularly the last eight years at Scottsdale, working with a dedicated and skilled group of volunteers,” he said.

“Working in Scottsdale has probably been the best experience I’ve had in the ambulance for a long time.

“The volunteers in this area are a really good bunch to work with so that’s made the work really good.”

He said some of the most unforgettable jobs he has attended have been during his time in the North-East.

“There have been memorable jobs within the service too, and many of those have come while I’ve been here so they go with working in the country area,” he said.

“We’ve gone to cardiac arrests and saved someone or managed to get them to hospital and they’ve turned up afterwards and thanked us. That sort of thing is rewarding.

“That’s happened more here than anywhere else.”

Mr Mulholland said they attend roughly one to two callouts per day, ranging from traumatic injuries, chest pains and hospital transfers, through to mental health support or car accidents.

A big part of their workload also comes from assisting injured mountain bike riders in Derby, with broken limbs through to critical injuries.

“You can almost count on going out there once or twice a block [four days], especially if you’re rostered on a weekend or public holiday.

“They can be pretty challenging at times just in terms of accessing someone and maintaining their care to hospital, or if they’re critically ill we call in the helicopter.

“Out in this area I’ve got to practise skills I haven’t used for quite some time, because sometimes you’re looking after more critical patients, and some of those aspects of care you just don’t get to do in urban areas.”

While Mr Mulholland’s job is largely serious in nature, there are moments of humour.

“Another one of the memorable parts of working out here is getting bogged,” he laughed.

“There’s been several occasions we’ve had to have the ambulance towed out by tractors.”

He began his training as a registered nurse at St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne in 1980, before undertaking paramedic studies with Ambulance Service Victoria in 1986.

“The work itself appealed, being out in the community rather than in the hospital, and I got into paramedicine and have been with it ever since,” he said.

After working in both metropolitan Melbourne and rural Victoria, he moved to the Tasmanian service in 1994.

Mr Mulholland has worked across many areas of the ambulance, including intensive care, flight paramedic, clinical supervision, management, education, and extended care.

Throughout his career, he has continued to upskill, completing a Master of Medical Science in 2010 focused on rural paramedic practice, then obtaining a PhD in 2020 which investigated rural paramedic practice and interprofessional learning.

Mr Mulholland said initially he planned to retire when he turned 60 but when Covid hit, he decided to stick around for another two years, dropping back to part-time.

In his retirement Mr Mulholland plans to spend more time pursuing his love of archery.

A morning tea will be held on Wednesday to farewell Mr Mulholland and acknowledge his dedicated service to the community as a paramedic.