Wilderness medicine, providing "vital emergency care in remote settings" is a rapidly evolving field and is of increasing importance as more people engage in hiking, climbing, kayaking and other potentially hazardous activities in the backcountry. A primary focus of the field is the evaluation, prioritization (triage), preliminary treatment of acute injuries or illnesses which occur in those environments and the emergency evacuation of victims. However, back country rescue and wilderness first aid is not the sole activity of wilderness medical professionals, who are also concerned with many additional topics. These include but are not limited to:
- secondary care follow up to first aid in remote settings, such as expeditions
- evaluation of experience and issuance of updated protocols for first response and secondary care
- the prevention of wilderness medical emergencies,
- epidemiological studies,
- public policy advisement to wilderness planning agencies, issuance of guidelines to disaster planning agencies, professional guides and amateur back country enthusiast organizations.
Read more about Wilderness Medicine: Scope of Wilderness Medicine, Epidemiology, Austere Environments Interdisciplinary Interface, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words wilderness and/or medicine:
“There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases,
As he sat there reading, aloud, the great blue tabulae.
They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more.
There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life,
Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them.
They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Socialized medicine, some still cry, but it’s long been socialized, with those covered paying for those who are underinsured. American medicine is simply socialized badly, penny wise and pound foolish.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)