Wilderness emergency medical technician

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician, or WEMT, is one of the highest levels of [wilderness]] medicine training available. WEMT training typically involved around 50 hours of wilderness medicine training in addition to EMT-B certification. Unlike an urban EMT-Basic course, WEMT trains caregivers for extended patient care: in the backcountry hospital care can take days to reach. The WEMT certification is not standardized, but outdoor schools and camps which focus on safety look to it as the gold standard in wilderness medicine. Since there is no standard curriculum, skills learned vary depending on the organization from which training was received. Some of the main providers of Wilderness EMT training in the United States include Wilderness Medical Associates (US and Canada), NOLS, and SOLO.

[edit] Training

Most schools that offer WEMT certifications have two options, one for people who are currently EMTs and another that incorporates certification from the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians (NREMT). Often a student will have to travel a long distance to attend a WEMT class, and as a result, most WEMT classes involve taking classes 8-10 hours per day for one or more weeks (depending on whether or not the student is already an EMT).

There is a strong focus on rendering aid with improvised means (for instance, using a branch and some rope to splint an injured extremity rather than using commercially available splinting devices). In wilderness settings it is unlikely that the specialized equipment found in an ambulance will be available, so the focus is on using only what is at hand in your assessment and care for a patient.

Providing care in the wild can be a daunting task, since the golden hour is probably out of the question, and you may have to treat or stabilize a critical patient for hours until help arrives or you can get them the care they need.