The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow was established in 1599 and through time has developed into the only multi-disciplinary Royal Medical College in the United Kingdom. The College is comprised of five distinct disciplines namely, Physicians, Surgeons, Dental Surgery, Podiatric Medicine and Travel Medicine.
The aim of the College is to support Fellows and Members during their career from graduation to retirement. Additionally, the College aims to set the highest possible standards of health care by providing career support to all Members and Fellows both in the UK and across the world through education, training, professional development and assessment.
Expedition medicine (or wilderness medicine in the United States) has been a growing sub-speciality over the past two decades. Healthcare professionals are increasingly accompanying a wide range of overseas trips providing care in environments different from their usual workplace. In response to this, numerous courses became available, offering expedition medical training to both medics and non-medics.
In 2008 the Royal Geographical Society Medical Cell, in conjunction with Oxford University Press brought together a wide-ranging team of specialists and published the Oxford Handbook of Expedition and Wilderness Medicine, a practical field guide to remote medicine. An updated and extended second edition of this highly acclaimed book was published in 2015.
Having seen the need for a more comprehensive and academically recognised level of training, using the OUP Handbook as a course manual, two of the second edition Editors, Dr Jon Dallimore and James Moore, developed the International Diploma in Expedition and Wilderness Medicine. It was felt from the outset that an academic course of this nature should be housed within a medical college, and being Fellows of the Faculty of Travel Medicine, both course directors were very pleased when their proposal to house the Diploma within the College was accepted.
Launched in June 2016, this Diploma is the first of its kind and sets the benchmark for education in Expedition and Wilderness Medicine.
In common with other courses at postgraduate level, the programme develops cognitive, leadership and practical skills that will enhance candidates' professional practice and therefore improve patient management. The modules are designed to facilitate development of a candidate's maturity and leadership as expedition healthcare providers.
These aims are achieved through keynote lectures, workshops and seminars facilitated by specialists in the expedition medicine field. The modular programme aims to provide an academic base to prepare healthcare professionals for the role of expedition medical officer. They will learn to become autonomous, reflective practitioners who can operate in a range of pre-hospital environments – jungle/desert/altitude/maritime. The multidisciplinary teamworking nature of the course underpins the College's ethos.
The programme aims to develop practitioners who are able to make sound clinical and situational judgements in environments and situations prone to rapid change and uncertain outcomes. They should be able to apply best clinical practice or evidence-based theory to support their decision-making. It is hoped that graduates of this course would become leaders in this field and help to disseminate the information learned to their colleagues and the broader healthcare community.
The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow is pleased to support two additional modules for RCPSG International Diploma in Expedition and Wilderness Medicine (IDEWM) graduates. Completing these two modules will allow students to fulfil all of the required learning outcomes to enable them to complete the Diploma in Mountain Medicine which is quality assured by ICAR/UIAA/ISMM. It is understood that IDEWM graduates have already completed approximately 80% of these learning outcomes during the course of their studies to date.