Lyle Brewster

Lyle has 33 years of experience as a paramedic and a paramedic educator with two different ambulance service providers and Charles Sturt University.

Lyle originally began his career with the Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade (QATB) in 1989; QATB went on to become QAS a short time later. He started his road experience in Ipswich just outside of Brisbane and spent 9 years in this area. Ipswich area encompasses city and rural locations and this gave Lyle a good idea of how different work can be in various locations.

Lyle later moved to Brisbane in 1999 and spent 5 years working in Brisbane city, servicing a population of 2.2 million people, with over 550 road paramedics based in Brisbane.

In 2005, Lyle moved to New Zealand where he spent 5 years working with St John Ambulance in the north island of New Zealand. Here he received his Intensive Care Paramedic qualification and spent 3 years in Taupo working on the rescue helicopter.

From Taupo, Lyle moved to the south island of New Zealand and took up an Education Tutor position with the St John clinical education department where he taught the basic life support and intermediate life support programs. Part of his role there also involved teaching ongoing training to on-road paramedics at all levels.

Lyle has a Master's in Health Science, a Post Graduate Certificate in Emergency Management and a Bachelor's Degree in Health Science (Paramedic). In 2020 Lyle began as a PhD candidate.

Lyle's research interests are:

• Complaints about paramedics who are registered with Ahpra in Australia
• Paramedic experiences working with people with mental illness.
• Experiences of people with mental illness cared for by paramedics.
• Graduate paramedics caring for people with mental illness
• The use of seatbelts by paramedics during response and transportation
• The safety of paramedics during response and transportation who are involved in vehicular accidents and near misses

Lyle is involved in State and National organisations.

• Professional member – Paramedicine Council of NSW
• Ahpra Accreditation Committee Member - Paramedicine Board of Australia
• Australasian College of Paramedicine (ACP) – Professional Advice Working Group