An wilderness emergency medical technician is an emergency medical technician that is better equipped than other licensed healthcare providers, who typically function almost exclusively in wilderness environments, to better stabilize, assess, treat, and protect patients in remote and austere environments until definitive medical care is reached. Despite the term, wilderness emergency medical technician training is available and geared not just to the emergency medical technician, but also the paramedic, prehospital registered nurse, registered nurse, physician assistant, and medical doctor. After all, without an understanding of the applicable gear, skills, and knowledge needed to best function in wilderness environments, including a fundamental understanding of the related medical issues more commonly faced, even an advanced provider may often become little more than a first responder when called upon in such an emergency. WEMT training and certification is similar in scope to wilderness advanced life support (WALS) or other courses for advanced providers such as AWLS (advanced wilderness life support), WUMP (wilderness upgrade for medical professionals), WMPP (wilderness medicine for professional practitioner), and RMAP (remote medicine for advanced providers). Unlike more conventional emergency medicine training, wilderness emergency medicine places a greater emphasis on long-term patient care in the backcountry where conventional hospital care can be many hours, even days, away to reach.
Some of the main providers of wilderness emergency medical technician training in the United States include Stonehearth Open Learning Opportunities (SOLO, the oldest continuously operating school of wilderness medicine in the world[1] ), True North Wilderness Survival School, the Wilderness Medicine Institute at (National Outdoor Leadership School), Wilderness Medical Associates (WMA), Aerie Backcountry Medicine, Center for Wilderness Safety, and Remote Medical Training.