When delivering healthcare in some of the most remote regions of the world with few resources and even fewer team members, it’s important to know when to lead and when to follow.

That’s what students will learn in EOH 795: Beyond Borders, an immersive, special projects elective in the School of Public Health.

Open to graduate students, the class seeks to introduce students to the world of global health through hands-on training through the lens of humanitarian medicine.

The Course: Beyond Borders

The course is the brainchild of Eric Linder, an adjunct professor who is also founder of Team 5 Foundation. He brings to the classroom more than a decade of experience delivering care to remote regions of the world.

After deploying to more than two dozen international missions to places like Guatemala and Cambodia, Linder wanted to teach students about the skills necessary to take their classroom learning to the real-world.

The jungle is an incubator, he says, and students learn essential survival skills, like how to make clean water to prevent parasites and other vector-borne diseases and how to be a problem-solver.

Why is it being taught?

Even with all the latest healthcare technology and equipment, working in a hospital or at the doctor’s office can be difficult, Linder says. But performing austere medicine in remote locations while on humanitarian missions adds new layers to the challenges.

The environment forces individuals to “go back to the basics” of having a good bedside manner by talking and listening to their patients to diagnose what’s wrong.

“You become a better practitioner when you do this,” Linder says.

Bringing medicine to remote locations also cultivates team building. A core component of the class will be assessing students’ strengths and weaknesses when working as a team. 

“If you want to be a good leader, you also have to know how to follow,” says Linder.

Who’s taking it?

The class is open to graduate students across health disciplines. Undergraduate students also can reach out to the Graduate College to complete a Graduate Level Course Request Form and receive approval to enroll.

Linder says the course will be valuable to public health, dental, medical and nursing students who have an interest in humanitarian aid — both in remote locations across the U.S. and abroad.

Students will gain firsthand exposure to health challenges in low-resource and remote environments with a two-day retreat in Red Rock that will simulate a humanitarian mission.

“You can only learn so much in a classroom, you can only learn so much in a lab,” Linder says. “You’re going to actually get to apply it hands on.”

What excites faculty the most about teaching this course?

Linder calls wilderness medicine a lost art — a hands-on way of doing things that will challenge students and help them better people’s lives in the process.

“We win the lottery by living in a first world country,” he says. “Not everybody gets that lottery card. We want to help those people that normally don’t get the help.”

The reading list

For anyone who wants to learn the basics of managing medical emergencies in the wilderness, Linder recommends the following guides:

• Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine, 7th Edition
• Oxford Handbook of Expedition and Wilderness Medicine