Sprengel Katherine A, Redpath Sophia, Palazzo Kira L, Hock Sara M
Third-Year Medical Student, Rush Medical College of Rush University Medical Center.
Associate Professor and Director of Simulation, Department of Emergency Medicine, Rush Medical College of Rush University Medical Center.
MedEdPORTAL. 2025 Jun 9;21:11526. doi: 10.15766/mep_2374-8265.11526. eCollection 2025.
Wilderness medicine is a growing field focused on delivering quality medical care in austere environments. Simulation-based education has proven effective in emergency and wilderness medicine, particularly in graduate medical education. We propose that introducing wilderness medicine concepts earlier in medical education as part of a high-fidelity simulation for medical students could both increase interest in wilderness medicine and have widely applicable educational benefits.
We developed a novel 1-day case-based simulation curriculum to be performed in a wilderness environment and invited undergraduate medical students to participate. A 25-question survey was administered before and after the simulation to assess subjective change across various topics.
The 10 of 12 students who responded to the survey indicated that the simulation significantly increased their confidence in managing urgent medical cases and increased their interest in the wilderness medicine field. All students agreed that simulation was an effective way to learn this material.
Implementing a wilderness medicine simulation in medical curricula appears feasible and provides a comprehensive model that can be easily adapted to other institutions.
野外医学是一个不断发展的领域，专注于在艰苦环境中提供高质量的医疗服务。基于模拟的教育已被证明在急诊和野外医学中有效，尤其是在研究生医学教育中。我们建议，在医学教育早期将野外医学概念作为医学生高保真模拟的一部分引入，既能增加对野外医学的兴趣，又能带来广泛适用的教育益处。
我们开发了一个新颖的、为期1天的基于案例的模拟课程，在野外环境中进行，并邀请本科医学生参加。在模拟前后进行了一项25道题的调查，以评估各个主题的主观变化。
参与调查的12名学生中有10名表示，模拟显著增强了他们处理紧急医疗病例的信心，并增加了他们对野外医学领域的兴趣。所有学生都认为模拟是学习这些内容的有效方式。
在医学课程中实施野外医学模拟似乎是可行的，并提供了一个可轻松适用于其他机构的综合模型。
