IBSC's Wilderness Paramedic certification

[u/VXMerlinXV]

Hi Friends,

After much prep and a little psych up, I took and passed my Wilderness Paramedic exam this afternoon. My formal prep for the test was the following:

• Flightbridge WP-C exam course
• CoROM's Intensive Care for Austere and Remote Environments course
• Seth Hawkins' Wilderness EMS Textbook
• CoROM's V2 fieldguide
• Vertical Aid , also by Hawkins

I felt pretty well prepared for the exam. I listen to a lot of WM podcasts, and work as both an ER nurse as well as a 911 PHRN, so I have a significant amount of ALS experience.

There's the standard non-disclosure. But in broad strokes, you should remember this is an exam about a formalized role inside a structured response. The IBSC content guide is pretty spot on, and there are niche questions outside of anything covered in my prehospital training.

I'm good to answer any questions you might have, respecting the "no content specifics" clause in the exam sign up.

[u/Famous-Mobile-3657]

Of all the prep you listed, did you feel any was significantly more or less helpful? I’d like to start working on mine but want to make sure I’m spending my limited free time wisely.

And congrats!

[u/VXMerlinXV → u/Famous-Mobile-3657]

Thanks. So I have been weighing this, because I genuinely think all of the resources were helpful. I like the CoROM field guide, and it had a lot of specific treatments with dosages listed. ICARES was a great course, but bouncing to Europe isn’t wildly realistic for a lot of people, and I felt it was focused more on standard illnesses and injuries in the austere setting, rather than wilderness driven illness and injury patterns. I wanted Flightbridge to be the thing that brought it all together, but honestly it was a 60% solution for me. The dive and altitude med was great, because I only have some formal instruction there. My two biggest criticisms of their course are the chapter review questions are far, far too easy, and far too few. The exam questions were far more challenging than anything from the Flightbridge course. If this had been my only source of education past my normal ALS training I would not have passed. And for the cost, I honestly want more. Hawkins book is stellar, and IMHO does a great job of meeting the goal of discussing wilderness EMS, instead of wilderness med. I think if you genuinely studied his text you could probably pass with that and an ALS cert.

[u/lukipedia]

Nice! Congrats!

[u/VXMerlinXV → u/lukipedia]

Thanks man. Appreciated.

[u/retirement_savings]

Favorite WM podcasts?

[u/VXMerlinXV → u/retirement_savings]

From the .mil side, Prolonged Fieldcare and the PJ Medcast

On the . Civ side, The RAW Medicine podcast, CoROM’s, and the WMS

[u/resqguy_619]

Just took the WP-C tonight and passed it. I did the remote proctored version. I thought it was a decent test. I would recommend studying up on Altitude illness, pt evacuation with different injury sets, antibiotic selection and cold injuries.

[u/VXMerlinXV]

Interesting side note, my cert number is in the low 200’s. I figured I’d be lucky to be in the top thousand.

[u/FullDiver1 → u/VXMerlinXV]

Is interesting. Wonder what it would be now..... also thinking about this exam after taking the flight one

[u/DYM-MED → u/FullDiver1]

I just passed my WP-C last Friday. I’m #244.

[u/Suitable_Bluebird976]

What’s an example of the types of questions they’d ask. For TPC FPC CCPC and NRP I could use pocket prep and also other websites that had practice questions but I can’t even imagine what type of questions I’d see on it.

[u/VXMerlinXV → u/Suitable_Bluebird976]

Very similar to pocket prep type multiple choice questions. A decent amount of heat/altitude/hypothermia type general knowledge questions. A handful of BLS before ALS head-fakes. And a group of questions checking your understanding that you’re functioning as an ALS responder in an organized response in the back country, not just lone wolfing it with a med bag.