Designing an Experience-Based Wilderness Medicine Educational Activity (Wilderness Medicine Interest Group-Sponsored)

Wilderness medicine is growing within emergency medicine and is a popular experience for medical students and residents. As interest increases, so does the demand for effective educational activities, particularly experience-based sessions. Designing and implementing these experiences can be challenging, especially in creating realistic, resource-limited environments. In this small-group session, we will cover best practices for developing wilderness medicine educational activities, from curriculum creation to implementation tips. Participants will engage in collaborative discussions to share ideas and brainstorm projects, leaving with practical tools and strategies to successfully deliver their own wilderness medicine educational sessions.

Learning Objectives:

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:
  • Emphasize necessary curriculum design best practices that will ensure strong evidence-based wilderness medical learning activities.
  • Discuss the various modalities of effective educational experiences with specific examples and tips for successful implementation.
  • Provide a collaborative venue to assist with curriculum development and small group educational activity development.

Presenters:

  • Walker Plash, MD
  • Geoffrey B. Comp, DO, FACEP, FAWM
  • Joshua C. Timpe, MD
  • Stephanie A. Lareau, MD
  • Hillary R. Irons, MD, PhD
  • Lara Phillips, MD
Authors

  • Walker Plash, MD

    University of South Alabama

    Walker Plash, MD is an Assistant Professor in the University of South Alabama Department of Emergency Medicine. He serves as the Associate Director of Wilderness Medicine, as well as the Program Director for the EM residency program. He earned his medical degree from Vanderbilt University and afterward completed his residency in emergency medicine at the University of Cincinnati. His academic interests include curriculum design, especially focusing on wellness and wilderness medicine curricula.

  • Geoffrey B. Comp, DO, FACEP, FAWM

    Valleywise Hospital

    Dr. Geoff Comp is an Associate Program Director for the Creighton University School of Medicine Emergency Medicine Residency at the Valleywise Health Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Geoff participates as a leader, mentor, and advocate for wilderness medicine and EM medical education, with experience lecturing and teaching locally, regionally, and nationally. His professional and research focus includes wilderness medicine, physician wellness, mentorship, and innovation in medical education. He constantly seeks opportunities to combine his interests through collaboration with others and outdoor exploration. Outside of medicine, Geoff can be found running or road biking, trying to find the best Mexican food in Arizona, or chasing his twin boys (Austin and Carter) with his wife, Mackenzie.

  • Joshua C. Timpe, MD

    Medical College of Wisconsin

    Dr. Joshua Timpe is an emergency medicine physician and educator at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), where he serves as the Assistant Program Director for the Emergency Medicine Residency program and the Director of the Wilderness and Environmental Medicine program.

    He is actively involved in resident and medical student education at MCW, where he directs the Wilderness Medicine Elective and the Wilderness Medicine track, preparing future physicians for the unique challenges of practicing medicine in austere environments.

  • Stephanie A. Lareau, MD

    Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine

    Stephanie is an emergency medicine physician at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke Virginia and Associate Professor at the VT-Carilion School of Medicine. She completed a Wilderness Medicine Fellowship at Georgia Health Sciences and completed her EM residency and medical school at Wake Forest University. She is the Wilderness Medicine Fellowship Director at VT-Carilion.
    Stephanie earned the Fellowship of Wilderness Medicine and Diploma in Mountain Medicine. She the secretary of the WMS Board of Director, is part of the WMS DiMM Faculty. She served as a director for the WMS Student/ Resident Elective in Virginia for 10 years and is currently the director of the VTC/Radford WM Student Elective.
    Her research interests include injuries in endurance mountain biking races, the effectiveness of high fidelity simulation in wilderness medicine education, student/resident WM elective curriculum and Lyme disease within SW Virginia.
    She is a certified Level 4 Swift Water Rescue Instructor through the ACA. She is also a WFA and CPR/AED instructor through ECSI. She is also a dive physician through UHMS/NOAA. She volunteers as an instructor for local EMS.
    Outdoors, Stephanie enjoys mountain biking, sailing, rock climbing, skiing, horseback riding and SCUBA diving.

  • Hillary R. Irons, MD, PhD

    UMass Chan Medicial School

    Hillary Irons, MD PhD FACEP, is an Assistant Professor in Emergency Medicine at University of Massachusetts. She received her MD from Medical College of Georgia, PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Georgia Tech and Emory, and completed EM residency at Michigan State University/Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Michigan. She completed a Wilderness Medicine Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital during which she spent a season working at the Himalayan Rescue Association in the Everest Region in Nepal, trip physician to the Siberian arctic, and doing multiple research projects on altitude illness. She has taught wilderness medicine for many years both with lectures, hands-on courses including AWLS, and simulation-based teaching. She is also the Expansion Race Coordinator for MedWAR (Medical Wilderness Adventure Races) which teaches and tests wilderness medicine through scenario-based adventure races since 2003. She has held national leadership positions in SAEM’s wilderness medicine interest group and ACEP wilderness medicine section. Her current research involves the cognitive deficits in hypoxic brain states specifically acute mountain illness and traumatic brain injury.

  • Lara Phillips, MD

    Thomas Jefferson University

    Dr. Lara Phillips is a clinical Associate Professor at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital where she works as an emergency medicine physician. She is the faculty advisor of the Wilderness and Disaster Medicine Interest Group at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at TJU. She completed a fellowship in Wilderness Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. During this fellowship, she worked at Health Aid Posts in the Annapurna Mountains through the Himalayan Rescue Association and continued to volunteer with relief efforts in Kathmandu after the Nepal earthquake in spring 2015. She has also worked in rural Dillingham, Alaska through the Indian Health Service and in Guyana at Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. She has a passion for teaching and service to the underserved in rural areas. Currently, she is one of the directors for the Breckenridge Wilderness and Environmental Medicine Elective for senior medical students. Her experiences have also led her to help with numerous covid initiatives, serving as part of the Regional Congregate Care Assistance Teams during the pandemic. She continues to pursue an academic career by combining patient care and teaching in traditional and non-traditional emergency medicine settings.

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