The Global Healthcare Semester in India is a blend of Wilderness EMT training, cultural immersion, outdoor skills, and service. This course is designed for those who are interested in a career in medicine and to develop the knowledge, skills, and experiences to engage effectively in global health settings.

The semester begins with an intensive four-week Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician (WEMT) at the Wyss Wilderness Medicine Campus in Lander, WY. After the WEMT, you’ll fly to India with your course and reconvene at the NOLS India campus in Ranikhet. You’ll spend the next 20 days backpacking in the Kumaon and Garhwal regions of the Indian Himalayas, which are rugged, glacier-carved ranges. You’ll learn how to live successfully in remote and austere environments, as well as basic camping, travel, and navigation skills. Leadership and teamwork education will be woven into daily conversations and interactions. You’ll practice problem solving with real consequences and immediate feedback, honing the soft skills necessary to succeed in many career fields.

Oscar Manguy

After the backpacking section, you’ll move into the cultural immersion section. You’ll live with a local family with another coursemate from your expedition in the village of Majkhali. Each day, you’ll meet the rest of your group and rotate through working on a community service project, taking Hindi classes, or shadowing medical professionals at a rural health clinic. You’ll have the opportunity to develop new perspectives you wouldn’t be exposed to at home.

WEMT Section

For this section, you will be based for a month at NOLS’ Wyss Wilderness Medicine Campus. The Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician is a nationally recognized certification that equips participants to respond to emergencies in urban, rural, disaster, and wilderness environments. The academically intense 200-hour course integrates an urban EMT course and a Wilderness First Responder course in a single program.

The integrated wilderness and urban medicine approach provides you with opportunities to utilize your skills in multiple applications. At every opportunity, your WEMT experience is enriched by scenarios in varied environments—nighttime exercises, extended care scenarios, and multiple-casualty incidents—all enhanced by theatrical moulage to emulate reality. You will also spend time in the emergency room of a regional hospital assisting the Emergency Department staff and providing care to real patients.

David Morgan

Successful completion of practical and written exams will provide Wilderness EMT certification and meet the eligibility requirements to take the National Registry of EMTs (NREMT) certification exam. Depending on state-to-state reciprocity protocols, graduates may also sit for their home state exams. For additional information about reciprocity from the NREMT to individual states, contact your State Bureau of EMS or visit this web site.

Backpacking Section

After your WEMT your course will fly to India, where you will start preparing for the backpacking section. This next section will take you through the soaring mountains of the famed Himalayas. As you pass through many remote villages on ancient cobbled trails, you will have frequent opportunities to interact with villages where cattle- and water buffalo-powered agriculture is still the main way of life, and migrating high-altitude shepherds with flocks of goats and sheep travel up to higher elevations for grazing.

Oscar Manguy

Gaining and losing 2,000 feet of elevation on some days, you’ll work hard traveling over steep, rocky terrain at high altitudes with all your gear on your back. You’ll learn all the foundational skills of backpacking: camping, cooking, map reading, stove use, Leave No Trace techniques, and proper sanitation. These are skills that you can apply to travel in any environment.

Culture and Service

The village of Majkhali will be the base for this experience. At an elevation of around 6,200 feet, this tiny hamlet near the town of Ranikhet offers an amazing view of the Greater Himalayas on a clear day. Pairing up with a fellow coursemate, you will stay with a local family to experience firsthand what it takes to live in remote, rural India. You will engage in domestic chores and eat meals with your host family.

Oscar Manguy

During the day, you will gather with your coursemates at a central meeting location and divide into small groups. Each day, you will either take classes to learn Hindi, work on various community service projects, or observe healthcare professionals engage with patients at a rural health clinic in Majkhali. You’ll spend your rotation observing and potentially assisting the healthcare providers take care of patients, gaining a firsthand account of rural healthcare in action.

By the end of this section, you’ll have had numerous opportunities to get out of your comfort zone and expand your empathy and compassion by immersing yourself in a new language and culture.