discipline+and+development

teaching & learning

This page is about developing as a wilderness medic ("being better at it next month than you were last month"). It is based largely on the "discipline" part of Tony Kern's model of airmanship.

=What is "discipline"? = This page is not about what to do when someone does something wrong or disobeys instructions. It is about **self**-discipline.

Kern describes (flight) discipline thus: "//the ability and willpower to safely [operate] within operational, regulatory, organisational and common sense// //guidelines//". A consequence of this definition is that the violation of discipline is a conscious & willful act - it is knowing what should be done but doing something different, rather than not knowing what should be done.

As a wilderness medic the requirement to act with discipline is increased rather than decreased by the environment. Short cuts that you often get away with in your usual environment are more likely to cause problems in a wilderness setting. Examples of things that require discipline, but which are important, include: maintaining hand hygiene, keeping adequate records, and careful reassessment of the casualty. These are not the sort of things that intrinsically appeal to those who enjoy the challenges of wilderness medicine; they can be crucial to the casualty's outcome, though.

=Links = [|discipline](human factors in aviation site)