ABSTRACT
The findings are categorised into three broad emerging themes. These themes consist of student work experience, paramedic professional identity, and institutionalisation. These themes sit within, and are influenced by, a subculture, along with a hidden curriculum which it gives rise to. The themes weave through the work as both discrete and overt forms of data. They provide ways of understanding many of the intricacies and nuances emerging out of the research. The transition of paramedic students, from the classroom to the workplace, is illustrated by examining this change from a framework of enculturation as both a concept and through the lived experience of the paramedic students. The chapter starts with a section which describes the environment which sets the scene of a typical shift for a paramedic. The aspects of data which make up the three themes and contribute to student enculturation are then discussed, each of which is illustrated using the data collected from the fieldnotes, interviews, reflections, and occasional reports.
