Looking for emergency medical training (beyond first aid)

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needvert 28 Mar 2014
I'm interested in advancing my medical skills beyond their current rudimentary first aid.

Context is injuries and illness in remote areas where assistance may take hours or days to eventuate.

I'm willing to spend weeks on this objective, up to 8kUSD (course fees), and travel internationally. I have no existing relevant qualifications.

Slight preference to courses in NZ or Australia. Any course would have to be in English.

The intention is to not work in the medical field, though it would be another thing to bolster the CV with.

Any suggestions?

Wilderness emergency medical technician seems the closest to what I'm looking for that I've seen so far:
http://www.nols.edu/wmi/courses/wemt.shtml
http://www.remotemedical.com/Remote-EMT-REMT
http://www.soloschools.com/index.cfm?event=course.wemt
 Dauphin 28 Mar 2014
In reply to needvert:

Bolster c.v. for what exactly? Exmed are pretty much the leaders in the field in providing training for industry in the u.k. and I think they provide courses with partners in the u.s. and Australia.

Exmed.co.uk

28 day EMT. Good luck with that.

D
 Caralynh 28 Mar 2014
In reply to needvert:

Wilderness EMT is a good course, run by WEMSi at Glenmore Lodge and Plas y Brenin. Actually my course at the Lodge was probably the most fun I've had in a week. Bar drunk dry every night, great camaraderie and good experience. You do need a certain amount of prior experience though, either NHS emergency stuff, MRT, previous advanced first aid stuff, otherwise you'll struggle with the exams (e.g. I remember one of the exam question sections was about contraindications for various analgesics including controlled drugs). Highly recommended IF you're suitable for the course.
 JayPee630 28 Mar 2014
In reply to needvert:
I think the critical question here are what is this for? You mention the CV, but the CV for what? And you have no existing qualification now?

The honest answer is that there's a massive gap between basic first aid skills (FAAW/mountain first aid - all the 2-3 days courses) and then a higher professional level of qualification such as ambulance technician (sometimes called EMT in the UK), paramedic, and the niche MR casualty care courses - with not much that's useful to fill it.

The key problem is that you can learn skills (and for sure there are plenty of companies that will take your cash to teach you them) such as cannulation, giving IV fluids, drug and oxygen therapy, advanced airway management, etc. etc.) but without detailed training and on-going experience you'll never have the competence and clinical knowledge to know when to use them.

Exmed are brilliant, as are a few other training providers - including all the ones mentioned. For $8,000 you could definitely get some good training, but without thinking about it first it might well be a waste of cash.
Post edited at 09:32
 mike123 28 Mar 2014
In reply to needvert:
a rec course might be a good start,
http://www.remoteemergencycare.com

 JayPee630 28 Mar 2014
In reply to needvert:

Have a look at this thread, you might need to register first though.

http://www.closeprotectionworld.com/medical-training/19599-what-next-after-...
needvert 28 Mar 2014
In reply to JayPee630:

> I think the critical question here are what is this for?

Well, 'Context is injuries and illness in remote areas where assistance may take hours or days to eventuate', to expand on that remoteness could be a national park in a first world country, or some backwater part of the world. The reason for being there may be climbing, or hiking, or kayaking. The injuries and illness would be things that may manifest on such trips such as broken bones or infection. As to the people in care, those would be friends or family, or even just whatever messed up person we happen to stumble across. The primary option will be to conduct first aid and call in emergency services. However, for whatever reasons emergency services may take too long - if they're coming at all.

> You mention the CV, but the CV for what? And you have no existing qualification now?

No existing relevant qualifications, aye. As for the CV, well, I work in ICT. A completely unrelated field, though the people who view my CV are often impressed by completely unrelated things, such as seeing a need for some skill and going out of my way to acquire it - or things that are just different but in a good way. (Case in point, I originally got the job with a traditional engineering degree).

> The honest answer is that there's a massive gap between basic first aid skills (FAAW/mountain first aid - all the 2-3 days courses) and then a higher professional level of qualification such as ambulance technician (sometimes called EMT in the UK), paramedic, and the niche MR casualty care courses - with not much that's useful to fill it.

Indeed!

> The key problem is that you can learn skills (and for sure there are plenty of companies that will take your cash to teach you them) such as cannulation, giving IV fluids, drug and oxygen therapy, advanced airway management, etc. etc.) but without detailed training and on-going experience you'll never have the competence and clinical knowledge to know when to use them.

Refresher training every few years is feasible, though as you imply I would be after a course that was reasonably complete in itself, rather than have the implicit assumption that it was just one step in a longer education.

> Exmed are brilliant, as are a few other training providers - including all the ones mentioned. For $8,000 you could definitely get some good training, but without thinking about it first it might well be a waste of cash.

I suppose the crux of my problem is I consider normal first aid to be barely scratching the surface. You can't learn much in three days, and given the stakes it seems woefully short. On the other hand, I don't want to spend 10 years and end up working in A&E. I consider weeks of my life a reasonable amount of time to dedicate to this task, as it isn't my field and emergency services will hopefully be promptly available.

I'm also one of those people who quite enjoys learning (it would be a holiday of sorts from my current job!).

I have made the implicit assumption that there is some worthwhile increase in patient outcomes via expanding on training from the 2-3 day first aid courses to something more intensive spanning weeks. This may not be true.
 Carolyn 28 Mar 2014
In reply to needvert:

There's certainly something to be learnt from more in depth training (although a lot of it is background anatomy/physiology knowledge you could learn from a book if you're that way inclined) - but hands on practical experience of real injuries is particularly useful. I learnt a massive amount from providing first aid cover at events like motoX, where the speed the bikes travel at means you see a reasonable number of serious injuries in a fairly short time. (For me, it was something I did at weekends whilst stuck in the flat lands as a poor student who couldn't visit the hills every weekend - the main reason was to see stuff, so I could be reasonably sure I could cope up a mountain)

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