Teaching Wilderness Medicine in the Virtual World with Dr Sanjey Gupta

World Extreme Medicine Podcast

Host Stephen Wood and Dr Sanjey Gupta discussed wilderness medicine in the virtual world. Forced to switch content from live and in situ to Zoom, Dr Gupta and his colleagues had to get creative. Most of Gupta’s teaching is in the environment that they are teaching to; the woods, mountains or fields and is mostly hands-on. Having to switch to the virtual environment, Dr Gupta and his colleagues flipped the narrative and used the Texas heatwave to have conference attendees try to “survive” by making potable water, cooking without electricity or gas and making a battery. Participants were creative and did everything from bleach dilutions to filter systems. In another scenario, Dr Gupta and his students acted as laypersons who were involved in a bike crash. They called “medical control” via telemedicine and were walked through examining patients and treating them using the equipment they had on them. Stephen and Dr Gupta discussed the challenges of teaching wilderness medicine using virtual technology, how to engage the audience and some of the technical requirements to make sure are in place before bringing the course live. Dr Sanjey Gupta is a Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and is the Chairperson of Emergency Medicine at South Shore University Hospital/Northwell Health. He is a Fellow in the Academy of Wilderness Medicine of the Wilderness Medical Society. He is a wilderness medicine educator and frequently speaks on the topics of environmental injuries, poisonous vegetation, wilderness medicine improvisational skills, and wilderness educational techniques.