NURS 5402 Operational Readiness: Military Cold Weather/Avalanche

This course supplements the "core" operational readiness content taught to all Graduate School of Nursing Advanced Practice students.  Students completing the Military mountain medicine operational readiness elective, receive readiness content that is aligned with Federal and/or Military Health System needs and which expands their clinical skills. The opportunity teaches skills related to mountain rescue and medicine in a snowy/icy environment, ice-climbing, high angle extraction from the face of a cold/snow/ice terrain, mountainside operations, field medicine in a frigid, and first aid in an austere mountain environment along with generalized self-awareness of stressors associated with functioning in an austere environment. The Cold Weather and Avalanche course provides attendees a robust knowledge base in the evaluation and treatment of injuries and illnesses encountered in cold austere, wilderness and mountain environments. It also provides the hands-on requirements required for attainment of the prestigious International Diploma in Mountain Medicine. The course focuses on the technical skills required to travel safely in cold mountain environments and avalanche prone mountain terrain. It provides instruction in technical mountaineering skills and cold weather survival. Students additionally complete an internationally recognized level I avalanche course. The course is approximately 20% didactic and 80% hands on training. The hands-on instruction includes several days of training in cold mountainous environments as well as a daylong patient rescue simulation in a mountain environment in the Green Mountains of Vermont at the Army Mountain Warfare School. The Cold Weather and Avalanche course is a follow-on to the Military mountain medicine course.