By Sophie Zhang, WEMT
Last month, the AdventureMed team had the opportunity to attend the Wilderness Medical Society’s (WMS) Summer Wilderness Medicine Conference. This conference was offered jointly by the WMS and the International Society for Mountain Medicine (ISMM).
As someone who is not an avid mountaineer nor actively practicing medicine, I was a bit nervous about my ability to connect with and learn from the material.
For me, there are 3 things that stood out.
First, in my opinion, the larger lectures were designed to introduce new thought processes, encourage further investigation into the presented topic, and to spur on conversation among attendees. In contrast, the smaller group workshops were where more tangible skills were presented and practiced.
For example, my favorite big lecture was presented by Christine Ebert-Santos, M.D. and Sean Finnegan, PA-C. Their lecture, entitled ‘Differentiating Pneumonia & HAPE in Children’, presented a new scoring system they had developed. Because pneumonia and HAPE have similar presentations, the Frisco Score aims to be an additional tool available to providers differentiating between a HAPE and pneumonia diagnosis in children, with the hope that clarity in diagnosis will prevent unnecessary antibiotic exposure. You can see their slides here or read a summary of their work here. While a diagnosis should not be made solely on the Frisco Score and while I personally have no tangible use for it, I still found this lecture fascinating as it highlighted ongoing research in the wilderness medicine space.
Conversely, Steve Roy M.D. led a small group entitled ‘Medical Simulation in Mountain Rescue’. In this four hour workshop, Dr. Roy discussed the importance of medical simulation as a teaching tool and provided examples on how to improve the experience for learners. From a fundamental standpoint, understanding the difference between declarative and procedural knowledge demonstrated the importance of simulations. Simply put, to know a fact and do a thing are two different types of learning that are housed in different locations in the brain. He described the phases of a simulation and how to improve each section. One highlight he mentioned was moulage and everyone was given a kit to practice applying realistic wounds. I chose to attend this session to improve my abilities as an instructor.
Second, a lot of the benefit of the conference can be found outside of the scheduled seminars and lectures. Some attendees plan their own meetings and events and folks are invited via word of mouth. Alternatively, the breaks and free time built into the day allow for ample opportunity to meet and chat with other attendees or presenters. For example, Aaron Asay PA-C gave a brief presentation that focused on some of his experiences using his medical license to fight human trafficking, including going on rescue missions, serving as a medical director for Aerial Recovery Group, and providing education on human trafficking and how to recognize signs. It was a presentation that was markedly different from other topics presented at the conference and, as such, garnered a ton of interest. He spent much of his breaks answering questions from and sharing information with people as they came up to him. From my perspective, this was a unique benefit of this conference; all the presenters were welcoming, kind, and excited to engage in discussions outside their scheduled time block.
Third, there is no prerequisite experience or skill needed to attend and benefit from this conference. Some of the more nitty gritty information flew over my head, but all presenters were able to succinctly and clearly sum up their lecture in an accessible way. I would recommend this conference to anyone looking to dive deeper into wilderness medicine.