To Load and Go

The study focuses on the professional identity of drivers working in the emergency medical service in the Czech lands from the 1970s until the early twenty-first century. It draws on an analysis of oral-history interviews, which reveals that the core of this identity lay in the “driving mastery,” accompanied by high psychological resilience, the ability to improvise, and good physical fitness. This identity, however, had a liminal character: drivers were indispensable for patient transport, yet criticised if they perceived their role as limited to this task alone. At the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, a significant transformation took place as processes of professionalisation and modernisation weakened the autonomy of the “pure drivership”, shifting the role towards a hybrid profile of a driver-paramedic. While the older generation of drivers derived their value from their experience and a detailed knowledge of local geography, younger drivers gain recognition primarily through their medical expertise and their ability to work as part of a team. The driver’s identity has not disappeared but has gradually evolved into the broader professional identity of the paramedic, within which driving is regarded only as just one of partial competences

Autonomy · Identity (music · Liminality · Modernization theory · Service (business · Task (project management · Older Adults Driving Studies · Spatial and Cultural Studies · Urban Transport and Accessibility

• Oral History Theory

  Lynn Abrams•Oral History Theory•2016

  Add to list

• Social Identity

  Robin Jenkins, Richard Jenkins•Social Identity•2014

  Add to list

• Enacting 'team' and 'teamwork

  Open Access•Simon Lewin, Scott Reeve et al.•Social Science & Medicine•2011

  Add to list