You’re thinking about starting a new career. Your dream job might be working in the outdoors. Or fighting fires. Or in a hospital. Or maybe you want to instruct NOLS courses.
If you're looking to get into one of these fields, getting a wilderness medicine certification can help you get started.
Read MoreTopics: wfa, WFR, wilderness medicine, WEMT, NOLS Wilderness Medicine
NOLS grad Arthur Herlitzkais recalls using his WFR-level training in action.
Three days into guiding a nine-day trip—the Bailey Range Traverse on the Olympic Peninsula west of Seattle—my colleagues and I noticed that a 65 year old gentleman was showing more fatigue than we thought normal (even with a heavy pack).
Read MoreTopics: wfa, WFR, wilderness medicine, Semester in Patagonia
This course was by far the most diverse NOLS Wilderness Medicine course I've ever taught.
There was geographic diversity, with students from as far away as Slovakia, Puerto Rico and Florida, as well as those just a few miles down the road.
Read MoreTopics: wfa, WFR, diversity and inclusion, Wilderness First Responder, wilderness medicine, Wilderness First Aid, education, NOLS Wilderness Medicine, Wilderness Medicine
I found myself patient-side during an intensive and grueling scenario at the Wyss Wilderness Medicine Campus in Lander, Wyoming.
“Keep holding still, you’re doing great,” I told Anna. Our eyes met as I held her hand and she took panicked breaths through the non-rebreather that was pressed against her face, filling her lungs with oxygen. Bright red blood was beginning to seep through the large pressure dressing I was holding against her abdomen to cover the 6-inch laceration there. We needed to move, but the single, tunnel-like entrance to the mine was blocked by other screaming patients on backboards and teams of rescuers, with only their headlamps visible in the thick, chalky smoke.
Read MoreTopics: Alumni, Wilderness EMT, wfa, WFR, Wilderness First Responder, wilderness medicine, Wilderness First Aid, education, WEMT, NOLS Wilderness Medicine, Wilderness Medicine
This week we have the first of a series of assessments of Wilderness First Aid skill retention.
Read MoreTopics: NOLS, wfa, first aid, wilderness medicine, study, WMI, curriculum, backcountry
The Setting - There you are, hiking with a companion through the San Juan Mountains in Colorado, when suddenly there appeared a rider on a pale horse galloping across a meadow. Your attempt to access a vague memory about pale horses passes into a focus on the beauty of the horse and rider which becomes a stumbling horse and airborne rider whose graceful flight ends in a tuck and roll as the horsewoman lands on her back, tumbles, stands and runs a few steps before finally collapsing in a heap.
Topics: medicine, wfa, WFR, test, first aid, wilderness medicine, WMI, case study, first responder, practice, wilderness, backcountry, WEMT