Overview of Expedition Medicine Courses
Expedition medicine courses are designed for a wide range of people who have, as a minimum, some previous first aid training. They are suitable particularly for doctors, medical students, nurses, paramedics, outdoor recreation teachers, instructors and guides who undertake, or are interested in undertaking, roles in expedition or wilderness settings.
Expedition doctors or medics have three
major roles:
These courses cover all three aspects, although most of the time is spent on the second role. Much of the course is also directly relevant to the emergency aspects of rural and remote medical and nursing practice.
All our courses cover core expedition medicine topics, although each of the three current courses has a different theme.
Core topics include:
The three different themes currently on offer are:
1. Marine / watersports (April)
This course covers immersion (near drowning), motion sickness, marine envenomations, introduction to diving medicine, and has practical sessions on recovery of victims in the water, and stretcher rescue from a ravine. An introductory session on marine navigation is optional.
2. Snow and Ice (July )
This course covers high altitude medicine, cold injury and various snow skills including avalanche safety, construction of snow shelters, and safety on steep ground. Two days and one night are spent in the mountains practising a wide range of skills. The night is spent in a snow hole that you have dug yourself.
3. Mountain medicine (November)
This course focuses on problems in a mountain environment including cold injury and altitude related illness. Practical sessions covering safety on steep ground and vertical rescue are offered. As there is a high instructor: student ratio we are able to offer a program suited to participants with a variety of technical skills. However, most benefit from the course will obtained if you can already abseil and tie a few basic knots.
Scenarios
Scenarios form an important part of the teaching and learning process. Scenarios start with simple, single casualty incidents, and grow in complexity through the course. By the end of the week you will be involved in small scale search and rescue scenarios and multi-casualty incidents. All scenarios finish with a group feedback/debriefing session. You will be required to play the part of the “victim” as well as to respond to the incident. One scenario will be held at night, and we’ll probably spring a surprise one at some stage.
Instructors
The course instructors are a diverse bunch of individuals, all of whom have extensive outdoor / expedition experience, and are used to teaching their topics. We have a number of expert guest speakers who present during the first days, and a core group of (usually) three instructors who will be present for the whole week.
Our
partners
These courses are offered by General Practice Training Tasmania in partnership with Drysdale Institute (link to http://tafe.tas.edu.au/courses/Eco_Adventure/index.htm) and in association with the Polar Medicine Unit at the Australian Government Antarctic Division (link to www.aad.gov.au).
Participants
Participants come from a wide range of backgrounds but are generally working in either a health care context (doctor, nurse, paramedic, medical student) or in the outdoor industry (outdoor recreation teacher, outdoor instructor, guide). We consistently find that this mix of experience and skills improves the quality of the course. For some parts of the course the groups will be separated according to medical expertise, and for some parts of the course the whole group will be together. Towards the end of the course we typically introduce parallel and flexible sessions that allow participants to choose the topics that most meet their needs.
Location
and timing
All courses start on a Saturday morning,
and the first two days are held at
Not
for the feint hearted!
In this day and age you need to inform people of things that should be completely obvious. It is completely obvious that this course will not be like your standard conference. It will be physically, mentally, and emotionally demanding. You will get cold, wet and tired. You will need a minimum fitness level equivalent to a full day’s bush walk carrying a 15 kg pack. You will need several sets of clothing appropriate to the environment. Don’t expect to get lunch or dinner on time!
To participate fully in the marine scenarios you will need to be able to swim a minimum of 50m unaided. In the mountain medicine course you will need to be able to abseil to participate fully in the vertical rescue training. If you can’t, you can still come along and learn to abseil. The snow and ice course requires you to construct and sleep out in a snow hole that is near the top of a mountain. You will need to bring your own personal gear. A recommended minimum equipment list is provided for each course.
If you would like to discuss any aspect of
these courses please contact