Wilderness med application essay

I post this with sadness that so few people are included in this course, but I thought I would share the majorly hippy musings that were somehow accepted...
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Today I saw a bumper sticker that said, “Trees are the answer,” and I had to agree, having repeatedly experienced the powerful physical and psychological restoration that can happen amid trees, plants, dirt, and fresh air. Nothing is more grounding than sleeping on the actual ground. I’ve come to understand nature as the source of health, and disease often as a symptom of human separation from nature.

What is the mechanism of action of the potent medicine of wilderness? Natural environments stand as a role model of health. A plant in its ideal ecological niche demonstrates a vitality that we rarely see elsewhere. The model of photosynthesis -- light into sugar, carbon dioxide into oxygen -- reminds us of possibilities of transformation and symbiosis.

As a future psychiatrist, I want to facilitate my patients’ access to this form of medicine. Only so much psychological work can be done “on the couch.” Lessons of the wild directly address issues at the core of some psychiatric illnesses. Connection to the larger ecological web counteracts the sense of isolation in depression and anxiety. Competence in planning and navigating an excursion offsets the helplessness of chronic disease. Overcoming fears of open places, animals, or water proves that other fears can be overcome back home. And awe in the presence of beauty addresses a less quantifiable element, the existential underpinnings of mental illness.

It is well known that psychiatric work can only be done in a setting of safety. My residency training will teach me to care for patients’ psychiatric safety, but if I am going to facilitate excursions, their physical safety will need to be my fundamental priority. The Wilderness Medicine elective would be my introduction to the skills I will need to make my vision reality.

Aside from psychiatry, I also have a strong interest in botanical medicine and partake in wildcrafting trips around Northern California and Mexico, where we respectfully harvest medicinal plants from their native environments. I have learned a lot about safe plant identification and the plant medicines available to treat minor illnesses and injuries in the field, but few people I’ve traveled with have more than basic knowledge of first aid. As someone who straddles the mainstream and “alternative” medicine worlds, I am in a unique position to complement the wildcrafting community’s medical approaches with the allopathic skills necessary in certain situations.

The study of wilderness medicine is necessary to balance out our hospital-based training, with CT scans and specialist consults at our fingertips. It is the ultimate in primary care, the foundation of all medicine, demanding another level of resourcefulness, improvisation, and judgment. I very much hope to leave the clinic/hospital for a few weeks this summer to reap the health benefits of time in wilderness as well as acquire skills that will help me to allow others to do the same.