Wilderness Medicine Boot Camp for Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellows Goes Virtual: From Uncertain Times Comes a Novel Approach to Traditional In-person Teaching

Abstract

Wilderness medicine (WM) education is desired in Primary Care Sports Medicine fellowship training. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and travel restrictions, a virtual wilderness medicine boot camp was created to share a WM experience with learners across the United States. A previously led in-person WM boot camp was converted to lecture format and delivered through video conference. This covered information relevant to WM and the sports medicine certification exam. A post intervention survey was completed by 79.5% of participants (128/161). Participants rated the virtual experience positively. Both fellows and faculty felt the virtual boot camp adequately taught WM topics (fellows [5(4-5)], faculty [5(5- 5)], p <0.01). Both felt the virtual experience was sufficient over an in-person boot camp (fellows [4(2.75-4)], faculty [4(4-5)], p <0.01). Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to rethink teaching strategies to optimize the opportunities for learners. To date, this is the largest boot camp recorded in the literature. This was a safe and cost effective way to ensure that requirements for a WM experience were met. This virtual course could be adjusted to fit learning objectives of any specialty and tailored to accommodate any level of learning.

Keywords

• virtual
• boot camp
• wilderness medicine
• education
• primary care sports medicine
• survey