Here are some of the courses and conferences I would like to attend. These range from tactical medicine, to humanitarian issues, and tech related.
Title: High Angle Medical Rescue (HAMR) Course
Organization: RedSTAR / Red River Rescue
Description: “This 50-hour course focuses on EMS-level patient care in the setting of wilderness high angle rescue. This course is a partnership with Red River Rescue, and instruction takes place at their training center in the Red River Gorge along high cliff lines and wooded trails.”
Title: Tactical Medical Provider
Organization: Special Operations Aid & Rescue
Description: “TMP teaches everything from pre-mission planning and medical threat assessment to providing care in austere or high threat environments. Students will learn the many differences of providing care in a tactical setting. Whether its assessing a sprained ankle or treating a critically injured patient, students leave understanding how to provide care as a member of an integrated tactical team.”
Title: Extended Austere Provider
Organization: Special Operations Aid & Rescue
Description: “Extended Austere Provider is one of the first of its kind. Understanding the environments that some medical providers operate in, we built this course to bridge tactical, wilderness and critical care medicine. This 5-day immersive educational experience will prepare students to provide care for prolonged periods of time when the next level of care is days away.”
Title: Diver Medic Technician
Organization: Florida International University
Description: “Experts at the FIU Medina Aquarius Program use the unique assets of the program to teach a board-certified Diving Medical Technician course designed to allow students to pass the NBDHMT board certification exam. This 48-hour NBDHMT-approved program provides focused didactic and practical training that addresses recognition, stabilization and treatment of decompression and other diving-related injuries.”
Title: Remote and Austere Medicine Skills Course
Organization: College of Remote and Offshore Medicine
Description: “The aim of the Remote and Austere Medical Skills (RAMS) Course is to provide innovative and expert medical skills for the operational, deployed and offshore practitioners to become better and more proficient in their professional career.”
Title: Counter Narcotics and Terrorism Operational Medical Support (CONTOMS)
Organization: US Parks Police
Description: “Law enforcement and the military services have long recognized that medical support of special operations can enhance the probability of mission success. This type of support requires a unique, additional expertise, which is complementary to the basic qualifications of prehospital health care providers.”
Title: Prolonged Field Care
Organization: SEI
Description: “Born out of necessity, PFC is rapidly becoming an expected capability across the globe. The course is customizable to the level of the Operator, student, medic or non-medic, and is offered in a 4 or 5-day module complete with academic lectures, hands-on practicals, and scenario-based exercises. In keeping with the S.E.I. standard, PFC is instructed by the most experienced subject matter experts ISO joint medical operations and tier integration.”
Title: World Extreme Medicine Conference
Organization: World Extreme Medicine Conference and Expo
Description: “The World Extreme Medicine Conference is a platform for inspiring medical minds to meet, share experiences and promote cross-disciplinary working. We are dedicated to sharing and spreading best practice for the world’s medical professionals who are willing to risk themselves to help others. The conference stimulates new thinking, extends professional relationships and shares new and more effective approaches to medical practice in challenging environments.”
Title: Special Operations Medical Association Scientific Assembly
Organization: Special Operations Medical Association
Description: The official conference for the Special Operations Medical Association. “The Special Operations Medical Association (SOMA) is the only medical association in the world that brings together the unique blend of pre-hospital, tactical, wilderness, austere, disaster and deployed medicine.”
Title: Fundemental Critical Care Support
Organization: Society of Critical Care Medicine
Description: More than 11,000 clinicians a year on five continents receive Fundamental Critical Care Support (FCCS) training, which prepares non-intensivists to manage critically ill patients for the first 24 hours until transfer or appropriate critical care consultation can be arranged. The course and its companion text assist the non-intensivist in dealing with the sudden deterioration of critically ill patients and prepares house staff and nurses for ICU coverage. The course is often used to prepare residents for rotations in the ICU.
Title: Fundemental Critical Care Support: Tropical Diseases
Organization: Society of Critical Care Medicine
Description: The Fundamental Critical Care Support (FCCS) program has expanded its scope of course offerings with the FCCS: Tropical Diseases course. Developed to educate learners about the transmission, symptoms, management, and prevention of tropical disease, the FCCS: Tropical Diseases course combines FCCS core curriculum with information needed for the initial identification and care of infected patients who are or may become critically ill.
Title: Anaesthesia Trauma & Critical Care
Organization: The ATACC Group
Description: ATACC is currently the most advanced trauma course available in Europe and is fully accredited and approved by the Royal College of Surgeons, London.
Note: Most of the time when a US education provider talks about being the “most advanced” they are in fact far from it. This is the correct phrase for the ATACC course though. Based on the content they have distributed including their course manual (freely available on their website) it is apparent the ATACC course is providing high quality training that reflects the latest advances in trauma care. Also of note is that the ATACC program integrates pre-hospital and in-hospital personnel (a model more common in Europe) to allow patients to have the best outcome possible.
Title: Penthrox Train-the-Trainer (Previously offered by ATACC – contact them for more information)
Organization: The ATACC Group
Description: Penthrox Methoxyflurane the new hand-held emergency pain relief inhaler delivers an analgesic medicine quickly to accident victims and trauma patients transforming the management of emergency pain relief.
Note: Penthrox was available in the US for a time but was taken off the market by the FDA due to concerns surrounding renal damage at anesthetic doses. Research has shown it to be safe at analgesic dosages. In the UK, New Zealand, and Australia Penthrox is still used and in some cases it is given at the basic first aid level. Having an effective inhaled analgesic for acute injuries that does not cause sedation or hypotension would quite useful.
Title: Global Disaster Relief and Development Summit *
Organization: Aid and International Development Forum
Description: “Global Disaster Relief & Development Summit strives to enable quicker and better response during crises and catastrophes by improving effectiveness, cost-efficiency and sustainability of aid operations. This year’s programme will expand its scope beyond disaster relief and will look into emerging global challenges, innovations and opportunities in international aid and development sector. It will continue to focus on best practice in humanitarian logistics, emergency communication, supply chain, procurement, partnerships and financing of aid programmes. The agenda is developed in consultation with World Bank, UN OCHA, Red Cross, USAID, World Vision, UNOPS.”
*I attended in 2017 and enjoyed the conference. Largely this is focused on a higher level view of disaster response which is outside of my current standard responsibilities but a very useful view nevertheless.
Title: DEF CON
Organization: DEF CON
Description: DEF CON is the quintessential hacker conference which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2017.
Note: I’m definitely no hacker, phreaker, or cyber security guy. I am curious about the things those folks do and would like the chance to attend this conference at least once. Technologies role in austere and humanitarian medicine is only getting larger which both empowers us and creates hazards for us. Digital privacy, triangulation of GPS and radio signals, and compromise of sensitive information are all topics we must be aware of as healthcare providers are increasingly being targeted in a variety of areas.
Title: Disaster Nursing Fellowship
Organization: Harvard Medical School
Description: “The objective of the BIDMC Fellowship in Disaster Medicine Nursing Fellowship in Austere Medicine is to establish a base of nursing for the purpose of providing humanitarian efforts in support of the BIDMC Fellowship in Disaster Medicine mission. The BIDMC Fellowship in Disaster Medicine Nursing Fellowship will support nurses with an interest in austere, humanitarian, disaster, and tactical medicine efforts providing educational programs and clinical support in the mission of BIDMC Fellowship in Disaster Medicine.”
Title: Humanitarian Academy at Harvard
Organization: Harvard University
Description: There are multiple course and programs under the Humanitarian Academy. General description from Harvard “Through the Lavine Family Humanitarian Studies Initiative and the Advanced Training Program on Humanitarian Action (ATHA), the Humanitarian Academy offers a growing catalog of in-person workshops, ranging from introductory overviews of the humanitarian field to advanced courses on specific topics such as Urban Humanitarian Response and Monitoring & Evaluation.”
Title: Diploma in Mountain Medicine
Organization: University of New Mexico Department of Emergency Medicine
Description: “The Diploma in Mountain Medicine course includes nearly 200 hours of didactic and practical training in mountain rescue. Students gain a thorough understanding of commonly encountered wilderness pathologies and spend hours simulating complex patient care in extreme environments and difficult terrain. This training equips health professionals with the knowledge and skills to adapt their medical practices to the mountains. Students are held to a high standard, and are expected to demonstrate through written and practical examinations both understanding of didactics and competency performing rope rescue skills. Students leave ready to become technical and medical leaders for rescue teams around the globe.”
Title: MSc Extreme Medicine
Organization: University of Exeter
Description: “Throughout this programme you will critically examine the challenges of providing safe and effective healthcare in a range of challenging environments. Key to this learning to recognise and evaluate the unique ethical, professional and legal challenges of delivering medical care in these environments.”