Dear WMS SIG Leaders & Members,

The WMS has offered the SIGs the opportunity to write the “Updates in Wilderness Medicine” section to be published on the WMS home page. The Updates section of the web page is designed to be a short review of selected topics pertinent to wilderness medicine and can be found at http://www.wms.org/pubs/pubs.html.

Our goal is to have a student-written Update published every 1-2 months throughout the year. This is a great way to bolster your CV and interact with some of the leaders in wilderness medicine, as well as “combining your profession with your passion”. The idea is to have an individual or small group from your SIG write and receive credit for a Wilderness Medicine Update article. The topic should be pertinent to current issues in wilderness medicine. We suggest interested authors look at the recent WMS publications  such as the Practice Guidelines, Wilderness Medicine Magazine, or WEM Journal for appropriate topics.

The WMS-SIG Research Committee will review the topics to make sure that there are no duplicates. The topics and dates will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis with deadlines beginning as early as this fall.   The Research Committee will attempt to reconcile all conflicts in requested topics and dates.   Unfilled months will be published via email and on the SIG website and further submissions will be considered on a rolling basis until the end of the year.

With a topic and a month approved, we will help you find an expert in the field you are writing about to assist with your topic and review your submission. Information related in each article should be current and evidence-based, with a bibliography included, and with a maximum of 2500 words. The Updates articles are intended not only for physicians and allied health-care workers, but for the lay public as well. As such, authors should emphasize basic background information, prevention, recognition, and treatment of clinical wilderness medicine problems.

After your reviewer approves your final submission, we will post your Update on the web for the allotted month and archive it after it is replaced. Depending on available space, your article may also be published in the Wilderness Medicine Magazine.  The magazine articles need to be no more than 1500 words so you may be asked to edit your submissions and provide a printable version--possibly with appropriate graphics or tables if available

This is an incredible new opportunity for students to get published; one which we hope you will take advantage of.  Please advertise this opportunity to your SIG members as soon as possible. I look forward to hearing from you soon!

To request your topic or for more info contact the current research committee chair, Chris Davis at christopher.davis@uchsc.edu