Abstract
To the Editor:
As the field of wilderness medicine continues to evolve, particularly with new forays into mainstream academic medical education, our membership should mobilize to position itself to aid in this area of growth. In a sense, this is a critical action and offers a double benefit. First, successful integration into medical curricula will further legitimize wilderness medicine as an academic subspecialty. Second, there is no better way to increase our membership base than to educate physicians early in their careers.
The WMS Education Committee has been partially tasked with fulfilling this mission and in doing so will need to rely on membership to support these initiatives. The Committee has identified the following actions towards improving medical education as a tangible way to change the Society's attitude of “We’re here if you need help” to “Let us show you how to get started.”
The new WMS website (planned for Fall 2008) makes available educational material specific to resident and medical student courses, including cases, lectures, and scenario scripts that facilitate wilderness medicine educators who wish to create or augment existing programs.
The Speakers Bureau involves organizing Fellows of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine regionally and offering a pool of wilderness medicine experts to give lectures, demonstrations, and other educational support on behalf of the Society.
There has been and will continue to be proactive communication on behalf of the Society with program directors and medical school deans to inform them of our resources, in both curricula material and speakers.
The ability of educators, residents, and students to connect with each other has been expanded through use of the WMS site, which not only facilitates communication but also provides a way to assess the demographics of wilderness medicine education.
There has been and will continue to be efforts made to reach out to other academic groups to create practice standards, as well as influence curricula. We are engaged with creating a joint statement on practice standards with the wilderness medicine subsection of the American College of Emergency Physicians.
All these steps represent a new and exciting time in the evolution of our field and will further promote the WMS as its sole academic body and as a viable academic clearinghouse for students and future practitioners.