Expedition Medicine March 10 UK course

Our flagship course in Keswick went well this month. We had 60 participants who experienced the full range of Lakeland weather during their time in Keswick.

Once again, Barrow House YHA hosted our course with excellent food, service and an amazing location. Whilst the programme remains broadly the same we invite new evening lecturers in and we vary the faculty. Nigel Harling did a fine job of the communications lecture and we welcomed back Dr Lesley Thomson for the diving lecture.

Our days are always a combination of indoor sessions, which include lectures, small group discussions or work groups and outdoor simulations or practical sessions. On day-1 the afternoon was a round robin of 4 mini-teaching sessions including RTC management, fracture immobilisation; wound management and managing altitude sickness. Ben Cooper ran the wound management and has developed the session into an interactive and engaging session where there are plenty of photos and bits of kit to get hands on. This went down well with all involved.

Participants were pleased to hear from Carolyn Henry from Raleigh who came up for an evening and told us about her experiences and how she had gone from being a delegate on one of our courses years ago to be Raleigh’s medical coordinator. Many of us at Expedition Medicine have history with Raleigh and we still see them as a great place to begin ones expedition career.

The highlight of day-2 is the safety on steep ground afternoon; students learn how to coil ropes, set up safe anchor points and lower colleagues off steep cliffs and drops. Also covered is the reality of improvising a carrying mechanism for various injuries.

Nigel Harling from BSES, British Schools Exploring Society, came in to explain how willing medics can travel with them and he then went on to entertain the audience with his tales of daring do and high adventure from his past and present expeditioning days. It was a memorable evening lecture and one we shall, no doubt, ask him to do again.

Day-3 has a very specific environments feel covering hot, cold, tropical, altitude and diving medicine and then closed with an excellent talk Sarah Outen. Last year Sarah rowed solo across the Indian Ocean and she told us of close encounters with whales, albatross, shops and freak storms which threatened to ‘munch her in their fangs!’ It was an inspirational talk and we wish Sarah luck on her next adventure where she intends to circumnavigate the globe by Sarah power.

The final day scenario saw the successful rescue of 6 casualties from various locations on the hill side and the arrival of the Mountain Rescue Landrover, the crew demonstrated how they would package up a casualty in one of their onboard stretchers for transportation to hospital. This looked like a somewhat more comfortable option than the rope stretchers our willing participants constructed to collect and transport their casualties.

All casualties and participants safely back to the hostel in fine weather and the final session discussed next steps and further opportunities. We staff thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and we hope the participants did too. Until next time we wish all Expedition and Wilderness Medicine graduates all the very best and we look forward to seeing you on future courses.

Piers Carter

Expedition and Wilderness Medicine