UCF College of Medicine students competed in the 10^th annual Southeast Regional MedWAR (Medical Wilderness Adventure Race) held earlier this year in Fort Gordan, Ga.

 

The "Survivor" type experience tested medical students' medical knowledge "out in the middle of nowhere," and their fitness, teamwork and adventure skills.

 

Of the 40 teams comprised of doctors, residents and medical students, only half finished the contest. A UCF squad led by Luke Lin with teammates Steven Bright, Ashley Curry and Lynn McGrath finished ninth. Other UCF participants were medical students Shawna Bellew, Bryant Lambe, Brittany Moscato, and Jen Villavicencio.

 

Participants had to run or mountain-bike through a course, finding their way with the help of a compass. Every few miles, they were instructed to respond to a "medical emergency," including a snake bite, a near-drowning, altitude sickness and an allergic reaction to a bee sting. At each stop, judges evaluated and scored the team on the medical care it provided. In one case, for example, McGrath had to pretend he had fallen off his mountain bike and was suffering from a punctured lung. He coughed, was short of breath, appeared to be bleeding and was losing consciousness. His teammates had to diagnose his condition and provide proper care in the wilderness.

 

"You had to think on your feet in stressful situations," said Curry. "Because these were simulated real-world scenarios, I know we aren't going to forget the lessons we learned."

 

Teams were quizzed on subjects such as physiology, pathology and microbiology.

 

"We thought a lot about Dr. Balkwill out there," said Curry, referring to microbiology professor David Balkwill's, Human Body: Health and Disease lectures when the team suffered cuts and abrasions from running through the brush and then had to wade through waist-deep mucky water in a swamp.

 

"It was grueling and much more physically demanding than we expected," she said. "As first-year medical students, we figured that what we lacked in knowledge we would make up in physical fitness. But on Sunday, when it was all over, I told people I'd never been so sore in my life."

 

Lin and McGrath organized a students' Wilderness Medical Society at the UCF College of Medicine and hope to compete in future MedWAR events.