Throwback to the sweet hot summer of 2015: The USA Women’s team won the World Cup, Taylor Swift’s 1989 was topping the charts (I sang every lyric to every song), and I was an energetic, sunburnt, 19-year-old working at a camp in West Virginia.

Topics: wfa, WFR, Wilderness First Responder, First Aid, Wilderness First Aid, Wilderness Medicine, stories

Topics: wfa, First Aid, NOLS Wilderness Medicine, quizzes, Wilderness Medicine

You’re thinking about starting a new career. Your dream job might be working in the mountains. Or as a first responder with Search and Rescue. Or providing medical care 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 such as a Wilderness First Responder, Wilderness First Aid, or Wilderness EMT can help you get started.

Topics: wfa, WFR, First Aid, WEMT, NOLS Wilderness Medicine, 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).

Topics: wfa, WFR, Semester in Patagonia, Wilderness Medicine

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.

Topics: wfa, WFR, diversity and inclusion, Wilderness First Responder, 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.

Topics: Alumni, Wilderness EMT, wfa, WFR, Wilderness First Responder, Wilderness First Aid, education, WEMT, NOLS Wilderness Medicine, Wilderness Medicine