On the 19th April 2024, four ScotGEM students (Lydia, Mairi, James and I) travelled to Carlisle for the medical student competition called Wild Trials organised by Glasgow’s Wilderness and Extreme Medicine Society. Wild Trials is a national competition held every year that brings medical students together from across the UK with an interest in pre-hospital and wilderness medicine. Lydia, Mairi and James are all final-year students based in Dumfries; I am in second year currently based in Fife. The team was cobbled together by James a few months earlier. I travelled to Dumfries the weekend before the competition to meet the guys and attend a training day, kindly run by Dr Ene who is part of the mountain rescue team in Moffat. Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary Education Centre very kindly loaned us the use of one of their old Sandpiper Basics Bags, which was invaluable for all the required kit!
As a second year, I have not yet completed my emergency care block, but a student from the younger years was required to qualify as a team. So, on April 19th, I made my way to Carlisle armed with enthusiasm, my semi-waterproof tent (thankfully the weather was sunny), some gloves borrowed from clinical skills, and some first aid knowledge…
The “wilderness” this year was a scout camp near Carlisle. The stations were set up within the woodland surrounding the camp. The stations were split into Jungle, Desert, Altitude and Water. Topics covered ranged from obstetrics, major trauma, seizures, bites and stings to burns. The scenarios were elaborate and detailed; this made them both challenging and interesting! The Glasgow students (also mostly second years!) who made them had spent 35 hours creating and testing the scenarios, and double checking the medical management- kudos to them!
The stations were OSCE-style: we were given a short vignette at the start and we were not allowed any help from the examiner. We then had half an hour to do our best to rescue our patient from their sticky situation. Obviously, this required a bit of imagination, but the simulated patients were devoted to the cause with lots of enthusiastic acting and screaming! Notably, the stations were a lot more fun than OSCE’s and sometimes were quite humorous (I’ve not yet had a funny OSCE, but there’s still time).
In the evening, there was a bake-off (each team brought a cake baked at home and the organisers of the event tasted and rated each cake). The theme this year was ‘Scotland’. ScotGEM’s cake in the style of a Tunnock’s tea cake won by a significant margin (baked by Lydia and decorated by Mairi). After feasting on the cakes, there was a ceilidh. This was equal parts fun and chaotic (as is every ceilidh I have been to), but was a great way to end the day and show off my dance moves.
On the Sunday, after a surprisingly good sleep in my tent, there was a quick talk about triaging in mass casualties from a pre-hospital emergency medicine consultant, followed by a mass casualty simulation with some very irate and distraught simulated patients. This wasn’t being marked, but was a good experience to see how some order is brought to some very messy situations.
Then, the winners were announced. We came second out of twenty-four teams! It was a surprise to all of us to have scored so highly, seeing as we went into the weekend not knowing what to expect, having met each other only once before, and having only one day of training as a group. Personally, I think we did well because we operated well as a team with natural leaders, good communication, a professional style, methodological thinking and a calm demeanour. Lydia and James took turns to lead the situations. We each brought something unique to the team, varying levels of knowledge and experience, calmness and care for patient welfare…I cannot take much credit for this result, but I did have a working pen on me at all times.
Overall, this was a great learning experience for me, as well as a fun weekend. It was inspiring spending time with fourth years and I hope that in 2 years’ time I will be as competent as them. As ScotGEM is a course focussing on rural medicine, it is a shame we don’t have a wilderness medicine society, but hopefully this will be the first of many ScotGEM teams to attend Wild Trials.
Kirsten is a second year ScotGEM student based in Fife