Welcome
to the Academy of Wilderness Medicine
FELLOW LOGIN
Fellow
Brochure (1.6MB)
Announcement
(1/10/2007)
The
commitment of the WMS to embrace academic excellence and
to deliver innovative services to its members shines through
in this dramatic new initiative.
The
Academy of Wilderness Medicine ties together the various
aspects of wilderness medicine academia and the Society’s
unique member services in new and creative ways.
The
Academy is a modular system of adult education that organizes
the broad range of information in the discipline of Wilderness
Medicine. It delivers them in a professionally packaged,
standardized fashion according to modern concepts of medical
education using objectives as the basis for learning experiences
and outcomes evaluation where appropriate.
The
backbone of the Academy is its core curriculum. This repository
of Wilderness Medicine topics is standardized for content
and format. While organizing the delivery of WM information
to our members, the curriculum is designed for growth and
employs a flexible cataloguing system to track both lessons
and learners. The curriculum is intended to serve all Society
educational activities through program design, curriculum
review, lesson and topic materials, and outcomes assessment
products. It encompasses written syllabus materials with
accompanying lesson objectives, electronic presentations,
as well as testing vehicles.
The
most visible of the Academy’s modular programs, and
the one that promises to be the most popular, is the Fellowship
program (Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine TM
or FAWM). This initiative offers a means to identify those
who have achieved a demanding set of requirements validating
their training in Wilderness Medicine for the assurances
of patients, clients, and the public at large. Society members
enroll in the Academy’s Registry of Wilderness Medicine
Practitioners and, by completing lessons from a pre-established,
100-hour, Wilderness Medicine curriculum; accumulate credit
toward becoming a Fellow. Any current member of the Wilderness
Medical Society who successfully completes the requirements
will have the distinction of being a registered member of
the Academy of Wilderness Medicine? and entitled to use
the designation Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine
(FAWM) and may reference it on resumes, business cards,
and advertisements. The program is open to all WMS member
categories and can be started at any time. A limited retroactive
review of credit will be offered until December 2005.
The
Society’s Education Achievement Recognition Program
(EARP) is another new benefit of Society membership organized
by the Academy. Members’ attendance at WMS educational
sessions is tracked and awards are presented for three levels
of participation:
•
The Matterhorn Award (30 hrs. and at least 3 WMS events)
• The Denali Award (70 hrs. and at least 7 WMS events)
• The Everest award (120 hrs. and at least 12 WMS
events)
Awards
include Society and peer recognition through multiple media.
No enrollment or fees are necessary for the EARP. Members
simply fill out and submit a session check-sheet indicating
which sessions were attended at each WMS Conference or Meeting.
The WMS will do the rest. Fellows and Recipients of Educational
Achievement Awards may receive additional special benefits
of membership as they become available.
Other
Academy modules include an on-line Research Question Repository
and a listing of WM Researchers and Mentors available to
Society members only. Support to WMS conferences, publications,
the Resident-Student Elective, and affiliated organizations
are offered through the core curriculum. Plans are underway
to offer seminar-based WMS Faculty and Researcher Certification
programs. Additional projects include a web-based educational
module and members-only access to downloadable educational
products.
Questions
about enrollment in the WM Practitioner Registry to pursue
Fellowship in the Academy of Wilderness Medicine TM (FAWM)
may be directed to:
Wilderness
Medical Society
The Academy of Wilderness Medicine
2150 South 1300 East, Suite 500
Salt Lake City, UT 84106
(801) 990-2988
The
future looks bright for the WMS. The Academy of Wilderness
Medicine will be there to guide our members as they continue
to find innovative ways to blend their profession with their
passion.
The
Strategic Perspective
Overview
The
Academy is based on a modular system of adult education
designed to enhance the overall academic quality and stature
of the WMS in support of organizational strategic goals.
The modules are building blocks that can be used to achieve
various outcomes. They may be applied separately or together
to take advantage of their natural synergism. When linked
by governance and leadership they form the components of
an academic academy.
Purpose
The
fundamental purpose of the Academy is to support the WMS
mission to advance healthcare, research, and education related
to wilderness medicine.
Mission
The
Academy provides an organized mechanism through which the
Wilderness Medical Society contributes to the body of wilderness
medicine knowledge and its application in a high-quality
and evidence-based fashion.
Vision
By adhering
to an unwavering set of core values, the Academy serves
the members of the Wilderness Medical Society by organizing
and presenting a program of adult education based on a standardized,
evidence-based core curriculum. This forms the bedrock of
quality upon which all Academy applications and WMS programs
are built. From this is derived an unrivaled reputation
for academic excellence.
Goals
The
goals of the Academy are to provide:
•
Professional designation for achievement in wilderness
medicine
• Validation for the public, patients, and clients
of practitioner education in Wilderness Medicine
• Recognition for completing high quality standards
in wilderness medicine
• Continuing medical education (CME) credit for
acquisition of knowledge and hands-on experiences in wilderness
medicine
• The advancement of an internationally recognized
curriculum of wilderness medicine categories, topics,
and skills
Core
Values
•
Knowledge and policies that improve health in wilderness
and extreme settings
• Evidence-based products, policies, and decision
making
• Interdisciplinary, multifaceted perspectives
• Combining scientific, humanistic, and environmentally
conscious values
• Reputation and prestige derived from quality
• Relevant to modern wilderness-related health challenges
Future
Direction
•
A mechanism to coordinate and generate consensus statements
and reports by WMS expert committees.
• The generation of “White Papers” on
policy issues of special interest based on expert opinion,
research, review, and published evidence.
• Conduct round tables and forums on special topics
convened at WMS conferences resulting in published papers.
• Offer an audio-visual lecture series on CD using
electronic presentations with text, graphics, video, and
voice-over features.
• Develop an internet-based distance learning system
of core curriculum topics that could be joined to form
Internet courses with various themes.
• Post a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) bulletin
board section on the web site that can be searched and
queried.
Academic
Philosophy
Core values
1. Knowledge and policies that improve health in wilderness
and extreme settings
2. Evidence-based products, policies, and decision making
3. Interdisciplinary, multifaceted perspectives
Combining scientific, humanistic, and environmentally conscious
values
4. Reputation and prestige derived from quality
5. Relevant to modern wilderness-related health challenges
1. Knowledge and policies that improve
health in wilderness and extreme settings
The Academy delivers
more than academically focused products. They are tailored
to a unique setting for a unique customer; the wilderness
and exotic traveler. Moreover, the Academy recognizes that,
like other healthcare delivery and improvement bodies, the
improvement and maintenance of health must lie at the core
of its purpose.
2. Evidence-based
products, policies, and decision making
The Academy brings
the tools of evidence and research to the WMS in an organized
fashion. These are common to all Society programs thereby
setting it apart from other educational organizations in
the discipline. This lends legitimacy, relevance, and prestige
to Society programs. Society leaders foster an organizational
culture that champions modern concepts of adult education,
faculty and curriculum development, and evidence-based medicine.
Historically,
many Wilderness Medicine educational programs have been
anecdote-based, poorly standardized, and often not developed
using principles of adult education. The WMS has set out
to set itself apart in this regard. While there remains
little high quality research in many areas of Wilderness
Medicine, the WMS embraces evidence-based medicine. The
Society pioneers a culture of “good science”
in the discipline.
The basic blueprint
for an evidence-based and academically focused Society is
as follows.
•
Establish and foster an organizational culture ermeated
by principles of adult education, evidence-based medicine,
and high standards for academic quality.
•
Undertake a program to develop a cadre of faculty and
program chairs trained in planning, preparation, and presentation
of educational materials and curricula.
•
Develop an objectives-based core curriculum that can be
used as the foundation for all educational programs. This
would be specifically designed to support the mission
and strategic plans of the WMS and serve as the hub around
which all other academic development activities revolve.
•
Compile and/or establish evidence to support the core
curriculum. This means supporting clinical research in
an organized and directed fashion.
•
Train a cadre of researchers that are focused on applying
standard investigative techniques in areas and methods
unique to the discipline.
3. Interdisciplinary,
multifaceted perspectives
The WMS is comprised
of a broad international membership representative of all
medical specialties and disciplines. It is from this repository
of diverse experience and opinion, unified by the legitimacy
of evidence and academia, that the Academy draws strength.
Employment of administrative and organizational procedures
that ensure the expression of this diversity in policies
and products is standard procedure.
4. Combining
scientific, humanistic and environmentally conscious values
With the application
of modern ethical paradigms and investigative methodology
there remains no obstacle to the blending of science, humanity,
and environmental stewardship. Consciousness of our place
at a level above pure clinical science and academia is fundamental
to the practice of medicine in wilderness settings.
5. Reputation
and prestige derived from quality:
Focus on quality
NOT quantity. High-quality adult education rapidly develops
a reputation. This leads to increased memberships, improved
attendance at activities, and more involvement by existing
members. Non-profit, volunteer-based organizations must
be creative and aggressive in order to compete and survive.
Quality, relevance, evidence, and academic prestige delineate
the high ground. Reputation, credibility, and service delivered
via high quality, evidence-based academics constitute a
road map to success. A universally embraced ethic of becoming
a prestigious society uncompromising in its standards for
quality of product and associations forms the heart of an
unbeatable organizational culture.
6. Relevant
to modern wilderness and environmental health challenges
We live
in stressful times. People plan recreation and adventure
travel on a different level of prioritization than ever
before. Concerns over personal, family, and national security
often dominate conversation. The WMS addresses this phenomenon
by ensuring that educational programs and curricula reflect
the real-time concerns of our members. We can do this by
addressing what weighs most heavily on the national conscience
(in a non-political fashion). In other words, our organization
must be relevant to what is most important to our members.
That is not to say that the role of combining recreation
and passion with the profession of medicine is any less
important, rather, it takes on a new dimension. Relevance
is a theme that winds itself like a thread throughout the
fabric of everything the Academy and the WMS do.
