Yesterday was my third day of my three day course. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't what I hoped it would be.
Most topics were survival and recognition of things that you might encounter in the wilderness.
We covered things like bits/stings, HACE/HAPE, dive injuries, GI infections, external infections, water filtration, burns, cold injuries, drowning, etc.
My main disappointment is that no topic was covered in depth. There was a little patho involved with the altitude and dive injuries. Beyond that it was mostly explanations of what types of insults can occur and what commercial devices can help. Much of the class seemed like a wilderness safety prep class, and I don't think a layperson would struggle with it. There was some talk about antibiotics for GI which was beyond my scope of training and experience but none of it was in the test.
I was the only Paramedic in the class. And in fact I was the only prehospital provider. The other 11 were MDs or PAs. The bulk of the MDs were EM, we had one pull/critical care and one OBGYN.
I feel like this class is more suited for in-hospital providers who expect to be practicing medicine in the wilderness on a trip or mission.
It was not death by PowerPoint though. There was that component but they made an obvious effort to get outside after about 2-4 hours of lecture. I would say it was a 50/50 split between PowerPoint and outside discussion and scenerios.
Overall, it was a review of material I learned in paramedic school. This is a fine review course of environmental emergencies but for the season provider I would not expect to learn any groundbreakingly new material. Also, I cannot yet confirm that any CEs will be applicable for EMTs or paramedics.
The class was hosted by the University of Utah School of Medicine.
It was presented by
Richard Ingebretsen MD, PHD
https://faculty.utah.edu/u0034209-RICHARD_J_INGEBRETSEN,_MD,_PhD/teaching/index.hml