WMI Students in Action

Our students come from all walks of life. Many work in the outdoor education and guiding industries, still others are employed by governmental agencies including the National Park Service, the Forest Service and the Department of Defense. Regardless of how our graduates utilize their wilderness medicine training, they all share a profound passion for helping others.

Becca Parker-Johnson WMI Wilderness EMT 2001

The Gila Wilderness provided WMI grad Becca Parker-Johnson a backdrop to work with course mates to transfer their urban medical knowledge into backcountry practices. As a resident surgeon in Seattle and graduate from Drexel University’s medical program, Becca found her WMI training to be a valuable additional asset.

"[WMI’s] Medicine in the Wild was an excellent course at the end of four years of medical school,” Becca said in the 2007 Fall edition of Wilderness Medicine magazine. “I had the chance to review and adapt the practices that I'd learned, focus on the teamwork skills that will make me a better resident and doctor, and think critically about how I learn and teach. WMI has the best outdoor wilderness medicine program in the country.”

Becca had grown up loving NOLS “from afar” and inevitably discovered WMI when she was looking to combine outdoor skills and medical training. She first came to WMI in 2001 as a student on a Wilderness EMT course, later followed by Wilderness Upgrade for Medical Professionals in 2003, and Medicine in the Wild in 2007.

“What keeps me coming back to WMI is that they can turn something extremely complex into basic concepts that you can practice. They use the method of teaching and doing, which has helped me to teach others,” she said. “The training I received from WMI is invaluable because I gained the background knowledge to be an innovative problem-solver, as well as the knowledge that helps in triage where I need to focus and prioritize.”

And while Becca’s experience with WMI has added value to her professional career, it has also benefited her in recreational pursuits. Of having to stabilize a dislocated finger during a recent hiking venture, she said, “WMI provided me with the mental training that helped me to stop and think about the situation, what I needed, and how to handle the problem.”

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