‘MacGyver medicine’: Med students compete in wilderness adventure race

A cold wind was rustling through the Virginia woods when Launa Clough, OMS III, and Venus Oliva, OMS III, came upon a parachutist who was entangled in a tree. Clough and Oliva, both third-year medical students at the Campbell University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Buies Creek, North Carolina, introduced themselves to the injured man, but he was in a drug- and alcohol-induced haze and didn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation. The med students knew they had to help him out of the tree in order to treat his injuries—but how?

That’s one of the scenarios Clough and Oliva encountered while competing in last month’s Mid-Atlantic Medical Wilderness Adventure Race (MedWAR) Challenge, in Newport News Park, Virginia. The event is held in nearly a dozen locations around the country each year; this installment combined canoeing, mountain biking, orienteering and wilderness medicine.

Participants are judged on speed as well as the soundness of the care they provide at a series of checkpoints with backcountry medical situations. The injured parachutist, for example, was actually a dummy in a tree, voiced by the proctor who was overseeing the checkpoint.

Clough and Oliva, along with orienteering enthusiast Matthew Bergens, earned second place on the basic loop of the race, which took the team approximately seven hours to complete. In this edited interview, they describe the medical challenges they encountered and share insights on providing care in low-resource settings.

Care in the wilderness

The realism of MedWAR’s wilderness medicine scenarios was a highlight of the experience, Oliva and Clough agree. At one medical checkpoint, they splinted the ankle of a person portraying an injured hiker; at another, a pig’s foot provided the opportunity to practice suturing lacerations.

Listening carefully to each scenario was crucial to providing appropriate care. One story involved a “patient” who’d been in a scuba diving accident and was reporting symptoms that sounded like those of the bends. However, his account contained one clue that pointed to the correct diagnosis: carbon monoxide poisoning.

Clough has offered care for real-life injuries in the great outdoors, such as helping stabilize a hiker who’d fallen down a waterfall at a park near Asheville, North Carolina. “Your brain goes into a completely focused mode,” she says. “MedWAR felt very similar; the event organizers did a really good job simulating what it’s like to be in those situations.”

‘MacGyver medicine’

For Clough, providing care in an environment with limited resources was a welcome chance to practice the skills needed for global medicine, which she plans to pursue after becoming a DO. “We call it MacGyver medicine—sometimes you don’t have the exact things you need, so you either have to figure out how to create them or find an alternative,” she explains. For example, a physician working in a low-resource setting might fashion a sling out of a T-shirt if nothing else is available.

Oliva, who plans to specialize in emergency medicine, found the event’s emphasis on teamwork rewarding. “Making decisions was challenging at times, but we all really needed each other,” she notes. “When you’re in the middle of nowhere with restricted resources, you see how reliant you are on your teammates.”

Both students agree that events like MedWAR offer rich possibilities for learning. “You never know when you’re going to encounter someone who needs medical care,” says Clough. “Having a basic knowledge of how to treat sprains, snake bites, frostbite and other outdoor injuries is a great way to make sure you’re prepared to step in and help if needed.”