Medical Student Training for a Wilderness Rotation at the Philmont Scout Ranch: Validation of a Skills Curriculum

Abstract

Introduction—

Fourth-year medical students from the University of Kansas School of Medicine have the opportunity to complete a rotation at the Philmont Scout Ranch. To be prepared for this rotation, the students need to be taught a set of skills so that they are capable of evaluating and initiating treatment of patients in the infirmary and backcountry. We aimed to demonstrate that the training provided to the medical students improved confidence in the required skills.

Methods—

The training curriculum was developed by three Philmont physicians involved in medical student education and included skills videos, virtual training sessions, and an in-person training weekend. The necessary skills were identified by these physicians. Surveys on the confidence in these skills were administered to the medical students before training, after training, and after rotation. Paired t-tests were done to compare the confidence levels before and after training as well as before training and after rotation.

Results—

A total of 23 responses were gathered from the pre-training survey, 21 responses from the post-training survey, and 20 responses from the post-rotation survey. There was a statistically significant increase in the confidence level of all the skills from pre-training to post-training and of all the skills except suturing from pre-training to post-rotation.

Conclusion—

The training curriculum successfully improved the confidence of third-year medical students with unfamiliar skills and helped prepare them for their rotation at Philmont. Further refinement is needed to improve complex mastery of all the skills and standardize the training.