Instructor Trainers
Being an Instructor Trainer means you are qualified to train instructor candidates. Your role is to provide in-person mentorship and evaluation to candidates. You may train instructor candidates independently of Base Medical or be contracted by Base Medical.
It's important for Instructor Trainers to understand the instructor training process. If you need a review of the process, expand the item below.
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The process of certifying as a Base Medical instructor is defined by four phases.
Phase 1: Instructor Candidate Application
All candidates begin the process by submitting an application to Base Medical. All candidates must have a WFR certification or higher. The Training Director reviews and approves all instructor candidates.
Phase 2: Instructor Candidate Training
All candidates must complete the online instructor training course and the online wilderness medicine lessons. Once complete, the candidate will schedule a 1:1 meeting with the Training Director. This meeting allows the candidate to ask questions and provides an opportunity for the Training Director to discover how Base Medical can best support the candidate.
Phase 3: Mentorship
During this phase, candidates will work under an Instructor Trainer (that's you!) to receive mentorship. This is when the candidate will see how Base Medical runs its courses and have a chance to get their feet wet in the field. The length of this phase depends on the experience of the candidate and the discretion of the Instructor Trainer. Once a candidate has completed one in-person training course under the guidance of an Instructor Trainer, then they are considered an Instructor Assistant. This means they can assist with courses taught by a fully certified instructor but not teach on their own.
Phase 4: Evaluation and Exam
When the candidate feels ready, the next step is to complete the instructor evaluation. To be evaluated, the candidate will be responsible for running and teaching a course. The Instructor Trainer will evaluate the candidate during this course. For experienced candidates, the instructor trainer may decide to combine the mentorship and evaluation course into one.
After passing the evaluation, the candidate will then be given access to the instructor certification exam. The exam verifies that the candidate understands the critical aspects of our standards and the medical concepts. They will receive their instructor certification upon passing the exam.
Ready to Train a Candidate?
The first step is to have them submit their application to Base Medical (link found below). Their application will be approved by the Training Director. This is Phase 1 of 4 of the training process.
Once approved, the candidate will need to complete the online instructor course and the online wilderness medicine courses (Phase 2).
After Phase 2 completion, you will then work with the candidate to provide mentorship and evaluation. Typically, at least two courses are needed to complete Phase 3 and 4. With the first course serving as the mentorship course, and another course serving as an evaluation course. However, depending on the candidate, the Instructor Trainer may combine the mentorship and evaluation phases into one single course. Some candidates are seasoned wilderness medicine instructors and simply need to see how Base Medical delivers a course and learn how to comply with our standards. You may also arrange the mentorship course and the evaluation course back-to-back. For example, you can offer two WFA courses during one weekend, with Saturday serving as the mentorship course and Sunday serving as the evaluation course.
Phase 3: Mentorship
During this phase, the candidate will assist you during a wilderness medicine course. This course serves as an opportunity for the candidate to see how a practical training is delivered, learn different ways of teaching various topics, and teach a few topics to practice using the SoE objectives. As the instructor trainer, it is important for you to balance which topics you will allow the candidate to get their feet wet teaching while also seeing how you teach and deliver certain topics. We recommend teaching critical topics such as the Primary Assessment, Secondary Assessment, etc, and assign to them an easier topic such as splinting, patient assessment demo, or hypowrap. This also keeps the course on schedule, as candidates have a tendency to run over time.
Be sure to reach out to the candidate early to share the course schedule and assign topics. Be clear about how much time they will have to teach the topic, re-iterate that the goal is for students to be active and practice skills, and the lesson must met the SoE objectives. Offer suggestions, like doing a skills lab or fun activity. Discourage passive learning approaches such as lecturing and relying on powerpoint.
After a candidate assists you teaching one course, they are now considered an Instructor Assistant. This means they can assist other fully certified instructors with courses. Some individuals will remain as instructor assistants and will not become a fully certified instructor.
Phase 4: Evaluation
When you and the candidate feel ready, they will need to be formally evaluated by you as the Instructor Trainer.
During an evaluation course, it is preferable to allow the candidate to have as much autonomy as possible. This includes registering the course, creating the schedule, managing student sign ups, and teaching. You will need to evaluate a candidate teaching the following topics:
Introduction of the Patient Assessment System
The Scene Size Up
The Primary Assessment
The Secondary Assessment
The Patient Assessment Demo
Running and Debriefing a Scenario
Splinting
Shock
Hypowrap
You may have evaluated the candidate teaching the above topics during other courses and feel confident about checking them off for said topics. This is fine.
During the evaluation course, you will need to fill out an evaluation form (link below). The evaluation form contains the specific criteria that an instructor must met in order to receive certification status and teach independently. You will submit his form to Base Medical (link below) and the candidate. However, at the end of the day, if you feel the candidate is not ready to teach independently, then you should not pass the candidate. Either way, you are expected to give the candidate constructive feedback about their performance.
If you candidate passes the evaluation, you may then share the link to the Instructor Exam.
Training More Than One Candidate at Once
An instructor trainer may not evaluate more than two candidates during one evaluation course.
If you are evaluating two candidates, we recommend trying to divide the topics throughout mentorship and evaluation phase. For example, one candidate might teach splinting during one course, while the other teaches splinting during the next course. Higher level medical providers have the knowledge to teach the primary and secondary assessment, however they may not be as familiar with the patient assessment system or they may not teach at the First Aid/Responder level. If you are training two candidates at once, be sure to evaluate the candidate with the lowest medical certification teaching the primary assessment and the higher provider demonstrate the patient assessment.