At UAB Heersink School of Medicine, students are presented opportunities for cutting edge, industry leading medical education, training with the latest technology and techniques that the medical field has to offer. How do medical professionals respond in remote or extreme locations when such technology and resources are inaccessible? Those scenarios and others are presented to medical students through the Wilderness Medicine Special Topics Course.
Last fall, MS2 students Gavin Baker, Kavita Kantamneni, and Christian Skimmer were a few students to jump at the opportunity to experience this special topics course. “I’m an outdoor person,” Kantamneni said. “I love skiing, tennis, and hiking, so when I was browsing options for special topics, I was excited to see one that placed us outside.”
The one-week course introduces and equips students with the necessary skills and medical techniques for patient treatment in wilderness and austere settings. The key in this course is not just diagnosing, triaging, and treating common outdoor medical problems, but being able to do so in a low resource, wilderness setting. “We were set up at Ruffner Mountain, where we listened to lectures and worked through simulations,” said Baker. “The hands-on aspect was my favorite part of the experience. Being able to immediately apply the knowledge from the course not only helped me learn, but it also made it an enjoyable experience.”
Throughout the week, students are met with a balance of classroom lecture at the Ruffner Mountain facility, outdoor learning activities, small group sessions, and practice and exam simulations. The simulation scenarios place students in front of instructors or volunteers acting as persons in need in remote or extreme wilderness settings: hiking/rock climbing accidents, skiing accidents, animal bites, etc. Students then must demonstrate how to calmly and efficiently diagnose and treat a variety of ailments, such as bee stings, snake bites, concussions, dislocated or broken limbs, spinal injuries, hypothermia, frostbite, and anaphylaxis, to name a few.
Wilderness Medicine Special Topics and Wilderness Life Support: Medical Professionals were conceived, developed, and have been directed by Walter A. Schrading, M.D., FACEP, FAWM since 2015. Schrading, an experienced emergency physician, has been teaching medical students and residents for over 35 years. “I created the Office of Wilderness Medicine in 2015 in order to facilitate my teaching and community endeavors,” he said. “This innovative weeklong class provides comprehensive training on environmental disorders and hands-on skills for caring for individuals in austere environments. There is also a portion of this course for medical professionals, such as doctors, nurses, EMTs, and paramedics.”
Medical students enjoyed that even sessions inside the classroom were hands-on, demonstrating how to properly tie various rope knots and familiarizing students with outdoor medical equipment and first aid. Schrading and other outdoor medical experts show students how to use SAM splints and how to create their own splints, tourniquets, and stretchers from material from the environment in low resource settings.
“One of my major take-aways from the course is the sense of resourcefulness and preparation,” said Skinner. “The instructors always emphasized that success is tied to being prepared. Always thinking ahead about what you’re going to need is vital in those settings and situations.”
Kantamneni appreciated that the course also gave space for the students to explore and present on topics they are passionate about or interested in. During these presentations, students were able to share a PowerPoint or physical demonstration on a topic of their choice relating to wilderness medicine and survival. Kantamneni is interested in dermatology, so she selected a topic about identifying poisonous leaves/foliage and the skin rashes and reactions that result from contact with them. Other presentations included how to make one’s own sunscreen from ingredients in the environment and how to tie intricate rope knots. Skinner presented on the utility of pine and spruce sap, such as using it to close wounds or as a fire starter.
“I like how the course teaches various approaches to medical treatment,” Baker said. “Some of the skills are specific to wilderness medicine, but others are more general and can apply in emergency medicine and trauma settings.”
At the end of the course, students took an exam to receive a national wilderness medicine certificate.
Click here for a publication by Dr. Schrading and to learn more about the wilderness medicine curriculum that he has developed at UAB Heersink School of Medicine.