Overview

For many years, MEDIC did not offer basic first aid, concerned that it wasn't possible to learn any actual hands-on life- & limb-saving skills in a course of just a few hours. After teaching over 100 Disaster + Travel + Wilderness First Aid 2-day courses to over 2,000 people, MEDIC developed a basic first aid course recipe that results in actual hands-on capability to give critical care during the first 10 minutes while waiting for an ambulance to arrive. Very shortly after MEDIC taught its first course with this unique recipe, that course's host wrote:

Course Recipe

MEDIC's 3-step recipe for transmitting basic first aid skills to you is unique, in order to accomplish the course participants' true learning of actual hands-on care-giving ability.

1) Sometime within a few days prior to MEDIC course day, participants at their own convenience take the prerequisite ~3.5 hour online portion of the American Heart Association first aid course.

2) The MEDIC course day begins with taking the, MEDIC SOLO CPR/AED/Choking course for Adult/Child/Infant, typically 9am-12:30pm. While this course is based on and exceeds all American Heart Association treatment regimens, it is not an AHA, Red Cross or other similar course. Unlike those courses, MEDIC SOLO's course shows no video. Instead, there is actual teaching by a live human being, and students hands-on practice in so many different scenarios that by the end of the class, they truly have solidified their hands-on skills for giving care in a wide variety of situations and circumstances. Every patient is different. You will learn, and importantly, think and hands-on practice through many of those critical differences. This Recipe Part 2 establishes many of the same critical life-saving skills EMTs use when they give care.

3) As SOLO does not offer basic first aid (only higher certifications), this Part 3 is the American Heart Association Heartsaver First Aid blended learning course, which has two components: the prerequisite online portion (see Step 1 above), and a skill session guided by a live instructor. On MEDIC course day, typically 1:15pm-4pm, we hands-on (once again, no video) build upon the important baseline of critical life-saving skills learned in Part 2 above, adding more (basic first aid) treatments into the picture. As the care-giving skills learned in Part 2 above are far greater than those in almost any other basic CPR/AED/Choking course, it is critical and required to take Part 2 even if one has a current CPR certification -- because this Part 3 will build on skills that folks have not learned or recently practiced in nearly any other basic CPR/AED class. Then, by the end of the MEDIC day, students will have hands-on practiced many life- and limb-saving skills critical to the first 10 minutes before ambulance EMTs arrive and take over.

All that said, all in all this is a 1-day class, and in reality there's only so much you can intellectually and hands-on learn in one day. Your skills will be nothing close to those of an EMT or medic. If you really want to develop skills to treat someone when it will be more than 10 minutes before the ambulance arrives (such as being in or driving through a rural area, a disaster zone, a location with no cellphone service, or just wanting to hands-on know more about how to treat different conditions so one doesn't have to go to a doctor), the 20-hour, 2-day Disaster + Travel + Wilderness First Aid certification course may be for you.

Timeline

1) Within a few days before the next step, each participant completes a 3.5-hour online course. Each person must print out and hand-to-instructor his/her personalized completion certificate prior to the start of the steps below.

2) (typically 8:30am-12:15pm): SOLO CPR/AED/Choking for Adult/Child/Infant certification course. Timing flexible. Required for first aid skills development even if one is currently CPR-certified.

3) (typically 1:00pm-3:45pm): AHA Heartsaver (basic) First Aid skills session & tests, followed by disaster / wilderness care-giving Q&A if interested and time permits. Timing flexible.