Class suggestion for wilderness medic training?

You may be asking for a lot here.

Wilderness First Responder takes about 80 hours, I think. Plus, it costs a lot.

I took a seminar once called the Mountain Medicine Seminar, and that was near San Francisco. Maybe 24 hours? It was half full of medical professionals like nurses and EMTs, plus some park rangers and Sierra Club outdoor leaders. Look around to see if anything like that exists.

The best part was how to do emergency surgery on the trail using your Swiss Army knife.

–B.G.–

If you looking for a basic wilderness oriented first aid class, taking the WFA. 16 hrs, usually on two weekend days.

SOLO on the East Coast usually gives it. At least here (in Colorado), the local REI often offers it through NOLS/WMI

Looks like there is a class in October:
https://www.nols.edu/portal/wmi/courses/wfa/ny/

IF you are willing to drive a bit, there are classes in upstate NY it looks like, too.

Frankly, most wilderness medicine the requires heavy duty knowledge and gear is beyond the scope of what you can reasonably carry on your back. Most wilderness medicine is about stabilization until the person can be evacuated out.

Thanks, Bob. I definitely do not want to spend 80 hours, 24 hours over 3 Saturdays (in winter!) would be my max interest level. I did some preliminary searching but figured I'd ask here too.

I have a pretty good general handle on things, but when something serious happens you can't be too prepared. Starting to get into trips beyond the weekend jaunt on well-traveled trails.

Edit: and thank's Paul, that may be the ticket.

What about the local Red Cross or Fire Dept.? For general first aid, cpr, etc…

I took the WFR course through Wilderness Medical Associates and knocked it out in five consecutive days. They travel all over the world but I took my course at St Lawrence University, NY.

Check out their website

"local Red Cross or Fire Dept."

Ken, I don't know how they operate where you are. Where I am, nearly all of the standard Red Cross 8-hour classes are a joke. They teach you what to do before you call 911. At the last time that I sat through one of those, the instructor could not say anything at all about hypothermia or altitude illness. The Fire Department wants to teach you how to deal with urban and suburban catastrophes like earthquake and wildfire response.

No thanks.

–B.G.–

+1 on the WFA suggestion. Look for a NOLS WFA (Wilderness First Aid) course. You will invest about $250 and a weekend to learn the skills you need. REI outdoor school also offers these classes, taught by NOLS instructors and members save a bit on the cost.

Back when I was half my age, I taught a few thousand people CPR, FA, AFA, and WFA. Agreed, Red Cross 8- to 16-hour courses can be quite tedious and focus exclusively on what to do while dialing 911. The Red Cross standard "Advanced First Aid" also doesn't go very far, very fast. It plods along further by virtue of being 50 hours long (say, 2 hours, twice a week, for 12 weeks).

Several things I liked about the WFA course we did: We required a basic level of FA knowledge and didn't rehash that info. We did our course in parallel with a standard AFA course and made it clear that WFA was harder and involved more reading so all the people who just wanted the minimum AFA certificate for Ski Patrol or Life Guarding didn't take our course – that was important because with a smart, motivated class, you can go further. There were serious backpackers, transoceanic sailors, concerned Scoutmasters, and most of them were there because they'd already seen some things happen and wanted to be better prepared. We did lots of practicals – two or three every class and 3 additional multi-hour sessions with fake blood, make-up, screaming "victims" with scripts, and having rescuers bring their backpack as it would be on an actual trip (so your splint isn't a splint, it's a thermarest plus backpack stays, etc). Things we did wrong at first: too much theory, too much anatomy.

A little outside the box, but you could ask multiple Red Cross chapters for the name of their instructor who would be best qualified to teach Wilderness First Aid. Especially if you put together a few like-minded friends, maybe they'd do a custom class. Not through the Chapter and not issuing a certificate, but taking you as far as you wanted to go regarding the issues most of concern to you. I've done custom courses for groups – pumping up the extended-care aspects or exposure to toxics, or whatever their risks were.

Was suggested as a place to start Bob. Since we are pretty rural here the Red Cross works with the University on some more advanced classes.

Anyone have a online source for the information given in the long WFR classes? Not a substitute for hands on I realize. But better than not knowing anything.

Thanks for these good replies, 24hrs and I have a half-dozen answers.

I have a reminder on the calendar to register for the NOLS class taught at REI. That gives me some time to sleep on it and poke around. I will also look for a separate shorter cpr class.

I just basically want to do no further harm when someone's femur is sticking out of the skin more than it should.

"Anyone have a online source for the information given in the long WFR classes?"

A close friend took the 80-hour WFR class about a year ago. She said that there was not much information given out electronically, and they wanted to keep it close to the vest that way.

When I took a Mountain Medicine Seminar, it was the same. They gave out handouts on paper only. So, I compiled all of the paper notes into a computer file. I'll be damned if I know where that is now. Can anybody read a 5-1/4" floppy disk?

I still remember the stuff about first aid for a bison goring.

–B.G.–

WFR taught by WMA will cover how to traction into position. I was working full time as an EMT and had just finished my first year of paramedic when I took that course. Lots of good information peculiar to the Wilderness that I never received during Basic Trauma Life Support or other training.

Paper books available from the NOLS store:
http://store.nols.edu/Store/pc/Wilderness-Medicine-c10.htm
same as what they use to teach the courses.

Also, you can find the classic “Medicine for Mountaineering” from many sources. Read it decades ago, lots of scary injuries and diseases described, almost gave up going outside :-)

Reading is not a substitute for hands-on training, with periodic refresher courses.

— Rex

I will also look for a separate shorter cpr class.

I suggest going for the CPR for the professional rescuer classes; they cost only slightly more than the basic classes, but the basic class feels sufficiently dumbed down to be not worth the savings. If you use the search tool on the Red Cross site, you’ll find some courses are only a few hours; I believe those have an online component (aka you watch videos). http://www.redcross.org/lp/take-a-class

On a side note, I liked the NOLS/REI WFA course; while it didn’t have time to go into as much depth as the WFR course, it covered most of the same material (e.g. reducing dislocations).

To close this loop, I took the nols wfa class. Excellent. PM me if you're looking for more information. Or just take it!