Busy week was had for sure! I started off with my trek through the north entrance of Yellowstone NP and traveled to Lake Village Clinic near the center of the park. Due to visitor traffic, wildlife on roadways and changing winter weather patterns it took just under 2 hours to travel the distance. The current Lake Clinic is the former Lake Village Hospital built in 1963, when there was a push to move YNP HQ to the “center of the park”. The transition of HQ never happened but the hospital functioned for many years delivering babies, performing surgeries, staffing in-patient wards and a fully staffed support team. In 2003 the hospital transitioned to a clinic model and the general hospital was transformed into a treat/release or treat/escalate care outside the park model. The current version of care within YNP at the 3 clinics remains today as a treat/release or escalate care outside the park model. All three clinics staff gathered at Lake Clinic for 4 days to orient to the care system. We had a good 50/50 mix of returning staff and new staff (such as myself) for 2024. We learned about the care treatment guidelines that are evidence based and adopted/adapted from the Wilderness Medical Society. We trained on the available equipment, supplies and medications. A good portion of time was spent learning the electronic health record. We interface with many visitors who are on a “bucket list” trip of a lifetime, so the aim is to get them healthy, stable and on their way. Less frequently we need to escalate care to a border town medical facility and do our best to send them in the direction of their planned travel. And in rare cases we need to emergently transfer patients by helicopter or ambulance to a specialty care cardiac or trauma center. We had a great time of learning from each other, practicing care of patients in our clinic ER room, and working with our physician advisors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants. After several days, I returned back to Gardiner, MT.
I also had the opportunity to do two full days of Montana grant-supported simulation training with our Gardiner, MT Gateway Hose Company and Gardiner Ambulance. We spent day number one with four critical clinical scenarios and day number two doing a mass casualty incident and vehicle rescue scenario. A top-notch professional company out of Bozeman, MT (Best Practice Medicine) provided on-site education and simulation experts as well as a tractor trailer national mobile campus training center, and fully equipped ambulance. Several surrounding jurisdictional partners participated in the two days of simulation and it was a fantastic opportunity for me to learn the local emergency response system, get to know the people, and further develop my skills in a new rural / austere environment. We had a blast, we learned a bunch, and we functioned well as a team. Best of all…I gained a whole new group of brothers and sisters in the emergency response community who welcomed me with open arms and quickly extended their friendship in kind. After only one week as a “temporary resident” of Gardiner, MT…I am already feeling at home as I walk or drive in town and get friendly waves and smiles from the true locals.
I was able to take a couple of hours on Saturday evening to venture into Yellowstone to enjoy the sunset and came across a few bears to view (at a safe distance) using my zoom lens.
The week coming up will be more hands-on orientation at the Mammoth Clinic and Yellowstone National Park Service Paramedic Orientation. Thanks for following along and joining me on the journey!
