June 5, 2019 (Wednesday)

June 5, 2019 (Wednesday)

How does the lack of health care access affect population health and patient wellbeing in a community?  What is the biggest take away from today’s Wilderness First Aid course?  How can you incorporate some of the lessons you learned today into your care of patients back home?

The lack of healthcare can affect a community's quality of life. It affects the community physically and mentally because the community cannot properly get the care they need. Due to the lack of access patients are unable to effectively prevent diseases and acquire the medications they need to control their diseases.

The biggest take away was triaging and taking care of the most critical patients first because you never know how long you will be with that patient. Also, your patient is your priority so you should continue to care and reassess your patient for trends to make sure your patient is not declining. I really enjoyed learning from this course as it is very similar to EMS back home and that is something that I love. I enjoyed using critical thinking skills and stabilizing limbs.

You can incorporate care you learned from this training for your patients back home by using the triangle. Your safety always comes first. That doesn't change from wilderness to hospital settings. Then treating life threats comes next. You can essentially use the whole triangle in your patient care at home beside the evacuation part due to the patient being where they are unless they need to transport to a higher level or burn center.

This class was interesting and I could not be happier that I was able to be a part of it and advance my skills in a different way.