Who we are
The Duke Physician Assistant (PA) Wilderness Medicine Student Interest Group (SIG) was founded in 2022 with hopes to foster a community of passionate and skilled healthcare professionals committed to advancing their knowledge in providing medical care in wilderness and austere environments. Our vision is to equip PAs with a strong foundation of skills, resources, and experiences to care for individuals facing challenges in remote and medically underserved settings. We also provide students with networking opportunities in Emergency & Wilderness Medicine and opportunities to bond with classmates while enjoying time in nature/outside of the “traditional” classroom. We are thrilled to see how the club has grown over just 2 years and how we have been able to incorporate what we have learned from others into the near-peer teaching highlighted below!
Collaboration with South Orange Rescue Squad
Last summer, we carpooled to Carrboro, NC, where South Orange Rescue Squad (SORS) is headquartered. SORS is a non-profit organization that provides all-volunteer emergency medical and rescue services. Dr. Daniel Willner, an EM physician at UNC, gave us a talk about the principles of wilderness medicine. Then, SORS Assistant Chief Josh Asbill explained the use of basic rescue equipment and led us through multiple rescue scenarios. We practiced packing patients in need of rescue with a Stokes basket, got a crash course in land search, and then set out on foot! We used tech that the team uses on real land searches to track and locate our mock patient. After we did our assessment, led by the former EMTs and paramedics in the group, we successfully extricated our patient from the bushes behind the station. This was a perfect low-risk way to get our hands on some rescue equipment for the first time and get a taste of what wilderness medicine is all about.
For anyone interested in volunteering with the Technical Rescue Team, or supporting this wonderful organization in other ways, check them out here: www.sors.us
Carolina Wilderness EMS Summit
The Carolina Wilderness EMS Externship (CWEMSE) is an elective rotation for medical students and EM residents hosted by Dr. Seth Hawkins of Burke County. After their month spent learning about wilderness medicine all across the state of North Carolina, Dr. Hawkins, his Externs, and other faculty host a weekend of teaching intended for other healthcare providers and first responders up in the North Carolina mountains. Seven students from our SIG attended the 2023 CWEMSE Summit in September and spent two very full days in Pisgah National Forest learning from the best.
The summit started with the station rotations led by Dr. Hawkins, Dr. Ben Abo, Dr. Chris Davis, and the externs. We learned how to set up Incident Command, how to access additional doses of epinephrine from epinephrine autoinjectors, how to rig ropes for a basic haul system with mechanical advantage, how to raise and lower our teammates safely, how to package trauma patients for transport, and how to run a cardiac arrest in the woods. The second day consisted of a full-scale rescue scenario that required us to employ everything we learned the day before. It was also cold and rainy for a good part of the weekend, and that was a lesson in and of itself. We learned how being wet and cold affects our capabilities, and it drove home the lesson to take good care of our own needs, bring the right gear, get enough rest, etc. Adequate preparation is essential to be an effective rescuer and not become a liability to the team.
The CWEMSE Summit is an annual event, and we hope to send a contingent again this year! For those interested in connecting with Dr. Hawkins and his faculty: https://hawkventures.com/summit/
Staying Engaged During the School Year
Unfortunately, we can’t escape to the woods every weekend for training. But there are a few ways we’ve tried to squeeze some more WildMed into our busy weeks of classes and clinicals! We’ve hosted a few watch parties for the YalePA WildMed Wednesday Zoom calls. These calls introduce PA students from all over the country to leaders in wilderness and austere medicine. We encourage our SIG members to take advantage of The Virginia Tech Carilion Wilderness Medicine Journal Club. We’ve also gone on a few local hikes, some of which have been organized with the Duke SOM and UNC SOM Wilderness Medicine groups.
Check out these awesome online WildMed resources to learn more:
Wilderness Medicine Journal Club Series
Hikes + Scenarios Event
After 2 of our executive members (Reilly and Emma) returned from their month-long elective in Wilderness Medicine, it was their goal to lead some hands-on near-peer teaching to share what they learned. A group of 16+ students signed up for an educational hike, unaware that they would be practicing needle decompressions, creating their own water purification devices and learning the best approach to care for an unconscious patient “found down” in the wilderness. The students had a rewarding experience creatively applying their didactic year knowledge in a dynamic emergency/wilderness environment and excelled in thinking of innovative ways to best care for their simulated patients!
To learn more about the student elective, check out the blog on WMS that the students wrote!
West Virginia Student Conference
This spring marked the 17th annual Southeastern Student Wilderness Medicine Conference! Where Duke PA students took the 4.5-hour drive to meet up with PT and MD students in the beautiful New River Gorge, WV, for a weekend of rainy camping, didactic lectures and hands-on opportunities to build knowledge in Wilderness Medicine. The day began with introductory lectures on Wilderness Medicine, patient assessment and stabilization, dive medicine and hyperbaric treatment, etc before we got a visit from the local flight EMS team to learn more about helicopter operations and pre-hospital patient care, blood product use, and more! Next, we split into groups to learn more about the treatment of drowning, point-of-care ultrasound use in wilderness medicine, splinting and improvised litters, and hypo/hyperthermic emergencies. It was a great, comprehensive opportunity to round out the topics discussed throughout the year and give our first years another hands-on, austere medical experience.
Questions? Interested in learning more? Reach out to the 2024 leadership team!
Leo Phillips, Liz Shipman, Emma Ker, and Reilly Walker are second-year students at the Duke Physician Assistant Program. Email leo.phillips@duke.edu, megan.shipman@duke.edu, emma.ker@duke.edu, reilly.walker@duke.edu with questions.
Editor’s note: Duke Physician Assistant Program students blog monthly. Blogs represent the opinion of the author, not the Duke Physician Assistant Program, the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, or Duke University.