Medical student pursues wilderness medicine
Medical student pursues to wilderness medicine Heading link
If someone needs medical attention in a larger city, they can get help in a matter of minutes. But what if someone is hiking up a mountain or camping in the middle of nowhere and needs urgent care?
That’s where the wonders of wilderness medicine come in. And for April Oertle, a third-year medical student at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford (UICOMR), wilderness medicine is something that comes natural to her.
Oertle says she enjoys expanding her comfort zone, which is why she loves wilderness medicine.
“Wilderness medicine is really fun because it can happen anywhere,” says Oertle, president of the Emergency Medicine Interest Group. “It doesn’t really mean just the wilderness; it means anywhere that has scarce resources. It can also be a city that suddenly undergoes a disaster, then it becomes a wilderness context, or it can be a very rural, remote place.”
Oertle started her journey in medicine by volunteering at a hospital in California when she was 15. That’s when she knew she wanted to join the medical field.
When Oertle graduated high school, she did emergency medical technician training in Wyoming with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), a nonprofit wilderness school, which also has wilderness first aid and first responder courses.
“When I was 18, I got to work in some of the hospitals in the area that was a Native American reservation,” she says. “We were doing helicopter rescues, flash flood rescues, we were in the canyons doing rope rescues and rock climbing, and I loved it. So, my actual first real exposure to medicine was wilderness medicine.”
Prasad Gadgil, an instructor with NOLS Wilderness Medicine, and founder at Midwest Outdoor Skills Training, says the medical strategy in remote areas is more intense for professionals because of the lack of resources in instances like an environmental disaster.
“It involves a lot of decision making and a lot of skills around patient assessment,” he says. “We also have to identify the problems and treat what we can with the level of training that we have.”
NOLS has a partnership with University of Illinois Chicago, and Gadgil has hosted two courses this year, and plans to host three more courses next year in Chicago. The courses are designed to prepare students for medical emergencies in remote environments. Students receive hands-on training, instruction from experts in the field, and realistic scenarios. They also learn essential skills needed in a medical crisis.
Oertle put her wilderness medicine skills to the test in Alaska as part of her NOLS training, where she went remote for 30 days between her first and second years of medical school.
“We didn’t have electronics, and we just had a medical kit with medicine,” she says. “I loved taking care of people and working with them each day. It was an awesome experience.”
While in Alaska, Oertle paddled a sea kayak to explore remote glaciers and bushwhacked for several miles while carrying a backpack, which weighed nearly 80 pounds. She also went through nine days of rain without a rain jacket, which soaked her clothes and sleeping bag.
She did it all with a persistent smile.
“You learn to live without critical things like deodorant, a fork, full meals, dry clothes, a shower, a toilet and a cell phone,” she says. “Having to do without these essential items does not eliminate joy.”
Oertle has taken several wilderness medicine courses, including a two-day course for professional practitioners, which Gadgil taught in Northbrook. She also participated in a wilderness medicine course designed for professional practitioners.
“These extreme rescue training courses are the best preparation for real life,” she says. “The best resource you have is the people you’re with—and that could just mean yourself.”
The Emergency Medicine Interest Group recently hosted its second Improvised Splinting Workshop, a hands-on event focused on introducing wilderness medicine to 18 students at UICOMR.
Prasad recently came to the UIC Health Sciences Campus-Rockford to lead a splinting workshop for students. Splinting is the use of materials found to create a temporary splint to stabilize a broken bone or other injury.
“It’s a key skill for first responses in the wilderness, where it’s important to be able to address injuries with wherever is available,” Prasad says.
The students learned to stabilize upper and lower extremity fractures by using clothing layers and materials they would use in the wilderness. The workshop emphasized low-resource techniques, including improvising ACE bandages.
“This unique experience, which combined skill-building with fun, reinforces the importance of adaptability and resourcefulness in emergency medicine,” Oertle says.
Oertle recently graduated from the NOLS program, but she continues to thrive in various expeditions, which helps her continue helping people in remote environments. She recently worked in a hospital in Africa through a study abroad program and she interned in a maternity hospital.
“I saw a lot of things that I wouldn’t normally see in the United States, like people not getting vaccines or care,” she says. “The hospital also didn’t have air conditioning, and it was so hot.”
Gadgil says Oertle will be someone who will thrive and succeed in wilderness medicine.
“She’s a NOLS grad, so she’s gone on remote expeditions, and she knows what it’s like to help people in remote environments,” Gadgil says. “She’s really pushing and leading this context of wilderness medicine and she’s traveling the world to take care of people. April is very excited about wilderness medicine, and she knows that it’s a valuable skill.”