At WMTC, we believe that a clear understanding of wilderness medicine is required for effective outdoor leaders. We also believe a wilderness medicine course should increase each student's awareness of the potential problems inherent in a trip and provide enough education and insight to prevent most of them. At the same time, it should teach the necessary assessment and treatment skills required to address the most severe problems should they arise. Our medical courses focus on providing practical instruction our students can understand, remember, and use.
Our courses exceed the Wilderness Medicine Education Collaborative's certification standards for topics, skills, and hours. We believe the additional topics, skills, and simulations are essential to adequately prepare our graduates to prevent and respond to injuries and illnesses in a remote setting. certification standards for topics, skills, and hours. We believe the additional topics, skills, and simulations are essential to adequately prepare our graduates to prevent and respond to injuries and illnesses in a remote setting.
At WMTC, background anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology are delivered online or in person and combined with instructor-led patient assessment and treatment skills followed by multiple simulations. Our pedagogy, curriculum, delivery strategies, course materials, and instructors are second to none. We dedicate considerable time, energy, and resources to ensure our graduates are well-trained and ready for the real world. We keep our tuition as low as possible without compromising the quality of our education and training.
From signs & symptoms to assessments & decision-making
Our unique and proprietary mechanism of injury/illness (MOI) approach to training helps students sort through the patient's signs and symptoms to reach accurate assessment, treatment, and evacuation decisions.
There is a finite list of common traumatic and environmental problems, each with an easily identifiable clinical pattern, making them significantly easier to assess and treat than most medical problems. As such, we present material according to the MOI: trauma, environmental, and medical.
Most injuries and illnesses in a wilderness environment result from minor traumatic incidents, a lack of awareness surrounding environmental hazards, and the minor medical issues often encountered during long expeditions (typically related to a lack of personal or group hygiene).
Field assessment focuses on distinguishing between injuries and illnesses that may be successfully treated in the field and those requiring urgent or non-urgent evacuation.
Understanding physiology
We teach normal anatomy and physiology before delving into the pathophysiology of a problem so that students gain a practical understanding of the problem. WMTC instructors use a full-sized skeleton and anatomical torso to teach 3-dimensional anatomy and physiology.
- This progression helps students connect the patient's signs and symptoms with their assessment and treatment, rule out problems that are not a concern, and become more effective responders.
During a course, students will learn to use skeletal landmarks while performing a physical exam to understand where a patient was hit, what injuries they have, and what internal organs may have been affected.
- Knowing the general function of the body's internal organs, whether they are solid, blood-filled and subject to rupture or hollow, muscular, and prone to infection - and where they lie - is crucial to accurately interpreting patient information, especially pain and tenderness.
Materials and resources
We recognize that students are unlikely to remember all the material presented during a course and have developed field manuals and patient notes to guide them during simulations and real life. WMTC students receive the tools they need to develop judgment and critical thinking in challenging field situations.
- We research, write, test, edit, and publish our own books and teaching materials.
- Our full-color weather-proof print and digital handbook is part of every WFA, WAFA, WFR & WEMS course and is divided according to the mechanism of injury or illness into three sections — trauma, environmental, & medical — and aids students in assessing and treating patients during simulations and real-life incidents.
- We provide copies of our patient notes to students in our certification courses to help guide them through the patient assessment process and ultimately document their findings. Our patient notes mirror our Patient Assessment System, work with our handbook, and serve as another tool to help students remain thorough, calm, and organized during an emergency. We include a copy of our weatherproof, tear-resistant Wilderness Medicine Handbook in the tuition of every WMTC certification course.
- Students can stay current after their course with case studies and articles from our blog.
Case studies and simulations
We use interactive case studies and realistic simulations to build skill mastery and critical thinking. Our courses contain enough case study and simulation time to allow students to make, discuss, and learn from their mistakes under the guidance of an experienced instructor.
Students learn the most during simulations — it's where everything comes together or falls apart. There is value in both. Mistakes are a natural part of the learning process. The goal is for students to learn from their mistakes (and the mistakes of their fellow students). Retention and judgment are directly related to field experience; students acquire field experience through simulations, after-action analyses, and feedback.
Simulations begin on the first day as the Basic Life Support (BLS) Skills Lab leads into BLS Simulations and, from there, into longer, more complex simulations that require students to complete and document their patient's signs and symptoms together with their assessment and treatment. Students use our field manual and patient notes to keep them on track. As the course progresses and instructors introduce new topics and skills, the simulations get progressively more difficult. WFR and WEMT courses often end with a mass casualty simulation. Simulations ALWAYS take place outside in a realistic environment where each student—or student group—has access to a well-stocked first aid kit and common expedition equipment (sleeping bags, pads, packs, tarps, ski poles, oars, sticks, etc.) appropriate to the scenario.
Most simulations are debriefed as a group using a whiteboard and large posters identical to the students' patient notes. In addition to poster debriefs, simulations in WFR & WEMT courses are videoed and reviewed in front of a television or LCD projector and screen. While students may find simulations overwhelming initially, they gradually gain familiarity and mastery as the course progresses. In general, their assessment and treatment skills increase with the number of simulations; this is the primary reason WMTC course hours exceed the Wilderness Medicine Education Collaborative's certification standards.
Case studies as evening work allows students to practice using our patient notes and handbook in preparation for simulations.
