I want to start off by saying I haven’t broken my arm.
After the one-day shakedown trek, we have been going through Wilderness Advanced First Aid (WAFA) training. We have started learning about different conditions, and injuries that people might run into while being out in the wilderness. It could be from dehydration to brain injuries. We are learning not just through lectures but also through constant simulations. We are divided into teams of 4 and we are put through situations that require us to take leadership and work together to help a patient. We also went through CPR certification today. It was a very informative session learning about how heart attacks, strokes, and burns happen.
Below is the answer to the questions:
What skills, abilities and processes you learned from the Wilderness Advanced First Aid training are most transferrable to the theory and implementation of leadership? Why?
- Wilderness Advanced First Aid training requires a lot of practice, and patience which is a skill in itself. But it also requires other skills and abilities directly related to the leadership theory. Firstly, Wilderness Advanced First Aid (WAFA) training does not always focus on the speed of giving help. It requires much more than just immediately helping the patient. In the past few days, we have learned the systematic process of approaching the patient and helping the patient in a safe and secure manner. If a patient is found anywhere, we first do a scene survey to make sure the scene is safe for the caregiving team. A lead caregiver takes the charge and assesses the scene and determines if it is safe for the entire team, and this directly ties into the leadership theory where a leader is someone who cares about the team and not just themselves. The skill of determining the safety of the team is very transferable and important for any team leader. After assessing the scene, the leader starts talking to the patient and asks the teammates to perform other important tasks such as taking pulses or providing bandages. This is an example of how a team leader should use the teammate’s skill most effectively. A single leader is not able to perform all of the tasks, so it is a very important and also a transferable skill to be able to use teammates’ abilities to take over some parts of the tasks and help make the work smoother. WAFA depends a lot on patience and calmness as well because it is very important to remain calm during stressful situations and properly help the patient without causing any harm to the patient. This is another skill that can help a leader to handle stressful situations. Lastly, the teamwork needed in the WAFA simulations are indicative of how real-life situations could be and a leader will have to calmly and patiently help the patient without causing any harm to the patient or putting the team in any danger. This level of awareness is an important skill to have for a leader and I believe it will be easily transferable because during WAFA, each of us were put through situations that we did not know before running into them.