biology

Wilderness medicine

Wilderness medicine is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Wilderness medicine rather than just read about it. In short: Wilderness medicine is a medical specialty concerned with medical care in remote, wilderness and expedition environments. The specialty includes prior planning, public health issues, a number of sub-specialties as well as responding to emergencies.

Key takeaways

Wilderness medicine belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Wilderness medicine to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Wilderness medicine from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Wilderness medicine is a medical specialty concerned with medical care in remote, wilderness and expedition environments. The specialty includes prior planning, public health issues, a number of sub-specialties as well as responding to emergencies. One modern definition of wilderness medicine is "medical care delivered in those areas where fixed or transient geographic challenges reduce the availability of, or alter requirements for, medical or patient movement resources". This rapidly evolving field is of increasing importance as more people engage in outdoor activities, with more participants coming from the extremes of age, and with more people engaging in high risk activities. The exact aegis of wilderness medicine as a specialty is in constant flux to match the requirements of patients underlying wilderness or remote activities. While wilderness medicine is the preferred terminology for this medical speciality in the United States, terminology such as extreme medicine, remote medicine or expedition medicine, are used internationally. Wilderness medicine overlaps with a number of other medical specialties in terms of knowledge base and scope of practice, these most notable include; pre-hospital emergency medicine, military medicine, humanitarian aid, disaster medicine and public health. The future of extreme, expedition, and wilderness medicine will be defined by both recipients and practitioners, and empirical observations will be transformed by evidence-based practice. Unlike wilderness first aid which is focused on the provision of immediate care to the sick and injured in a wilderness setting, wilderness medicine has a far broader approach. These include but are not limited to:

Prolonged Field Care / Prolonged Casualty Care / Austere Emergency Care Secondary care follow up in remote settings, such as expeditions or in humanitarian settings The prevention of wilderness medical emergencies, illnesses and injuries Public health interventions Providing critical care medicine in austere environments

Scope Wilderness medicine is a varied sub-specialty, encompassing skills and knowledge from many other specialties. The specific curricula will vary but an example can be seen in the curriculum for Fellowship in the Academy of Wilderness Medicine (FAWM):

Epidemiology The epidemiology of wilderness medicine is as broad as the patient groups, geography and activities in question. Common risks to many of these are gastrointestinal upset, and minor injuries (ankle sprains, fractures, scrapes and lacerations) as well as the rarer and more serious disorders such as major trauma, heat related illnesses and cardiovascular disease (e.g. cardiac arrest). Alterations to normal routines and the stresses associated with travel can trigger pre-existing mental health conditions. There are also a number of specific wilderness medical emergencies.

Austere environments interdisciplinary interface Insights from the field of Military Combat Tactical Care (TCCC) interact with wilderness medical practice and protocol development. Moreover, new products and technologies tested in combat are adopted by wilderness medical personnel and vice versa. Experts in wilderness medicine come from various professional groups and specialist backgrounds including the military. More recently, advances in the development of Prolonged Field Care (PFC) guidelines has led to the development of military and civilian PFC courses, such as the international Austere Emergency Care course.

Notable Individuals Prof Paul Auerbach (January 4, 1951 – June 23, 2021)(Wilderness Medicine) Dr Jon Dallimore (Expedition Medicine) Dr Luanne Freer (Founder Everest ER) Dr Peter Hackett (Altitude Medicine) Mark Hannaford (Extreme Medicine) Dr Seth C. Hawkins (Wilderness Medicine) Dr Olivia Kiwanuka (Founder Adventure Medicine) Dr Sean Hudson MBE (Expedition Medicine) Prof Chris Imray (Altitude Physiology) Dr Kenneth Iserson (Improvised Medicine) Col Sean Keenan (Prolonged Field Care, Special Operations Medicine) Dr Burjor Langdana (Expedition Dentistry) Dr Hannah Lock (Expedition & Mountain Medicine) Mr Aebhric O’Kelly (Special Operations Medicine, Prolonged Field Care)

Education

Few countries provide formal medical accreditation for specialists in wilderness medicine. The credentialing that exists is mostly drawn from professional organisations run for and by wilderness medicine clinicians. As a result, there is a huge variety in the education available for wilderness medicine, with only a few educational institutions specialising in this field. The Wilderness Medical Society is perhaps the oldest and most well established organisation in this area and has established international reach. The Wilderness Medical Society produce the Wilderness & Environmental Medicine journal and administer the Fellowship of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine (FAWM) award. The FAWM was first awarded in 2007 in 28 clinicians (20 men and 8 women). The FAWM continues today and recognised educational activity form a number of providers which provide credit towards the Fellowship. The College of Remote and Offshore Medicine (CoROM) in Malta offers FAWM credit as well as; undergraduate, postgraduate and short courses in wilderness medicine-related topics. and mountain medicine. An extreme medicine master's degree has run in partnership between World Extreme Medicine and the University of Exeter since 2016. There are a number of higher education and specialist qualifications available internationally:

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Wilderness medicine

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Wilderness medicine claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Wilderness medicine before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Wilderness medicine ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Wilderness medicine

In research: Wilderness medicine appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Wilderness medicine in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Wilderness medicine is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Medical emergencies, Wilderness medical emergencies, Wilderness medicine, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Wilderness medicine outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Wilderness medicine in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Wilderness medicine means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Wilderness medicine out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Wilderness medicine in simple terms?

Why does Wilderness medicine matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Wilderness medicine?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Wilderness medicine.