Summer is in full swing, and before long Garold Minns, M.D., will be packing a duffle bag and heading to the Philmont Scout Ranch in the New Mexico wilderness.

And no, he's not going as a Scout.

Minns, dean of the KU School of Medicine-Wichita, will be returning for his sixth year to supervise medical students who run the ranch's infirmary.

Eight medical students per month volunteer for a 30-day rotation as medics at Philmont, about an eight-hour drive from Wichita, during June, July, and August. They come from all three KU medical school campuses and are required to have finished their third year in order to serve. A fully-licensed physician must supervise them, which is where Minns and other medical school faculty and alumni come in.

Philmont and KU: 58 years and counting

The relationship between the ranch and KU began in 1957, when the first student was assigned to go. "I don't believe he volunteered," said Minns. "Back in those days, being in medical school was kind of like being in the military."

In the intervening years, the opportunity has become so popular with students that the school has ample volunteers. "Assignments" are no longer necessary.

"We see a little bit of everything at the camp," says Minns. "From bug bites and dehydration to more serious issues like cardiac conditions, infections ... even bear attacks."

Hands-on training for students

It's a hands-on experience for medical students, who do the initial exams and present a treatment plan to the physician supervisor. The ranch is large - 137,000 acres or about 214 square miles - so students must sometimes travel long distances over extremely rugged terrain to reach, evaluate, and treat incapacitated Scouts. First- and second-year medical students, though they can't serve as medics, can volunteer to be the drivers who are dispatched to take medics to remote locations within the camp.

Student medics receive a small stipend during their month of service, in austere living quarters, eating in the Ranch cafeteria. "It's not the Hyatt," Minns said. Although, in recent years, faculty and alumni raised funds to upgrade the infirmary and build new exam rooms, inpatient rooms, and a radio room.

Minns says students love the experience and are eager for the opportunity to practice wilderness medicine. Although intense and challenging (the closest hospital facilities are 40 miles away), it's always a good learning experience.

One man's legacy

The ranch has a fascinating history, the result of one man's philanthropy. The land was originally owned by a wealthy oil man, Waite Phillips, a brother of the men who founded the Phillips Petroleum Company.

Phillips, an Iowa native, made his fortune as a wildcat driller and was bought out by Standard Oil in the 1920s. The land he donated to begin the ranch in 1938 he originally intended to retain as a private resort, but decided that "many, rather than a few" should enjoy the land. As an endowment, he included his 23-story Philtower Building in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the gift.

Today about 23,000 campers are drawn to Philmont each year during the three-month summer season.

Appreciation for wilderness medicine

Minns became involved with Philmont in 2009 when his daughter JulieAnn was beginning her fourth year of medical school and wanted to serve as a medic. "I thought, well heck ... this is the time to go," Minns recalls. "As someone raised on the plains, I had never spent much time in the mountains, and this experience gave me an appreciation for the wilderness in the West."

He has returned every year since his initiation to Philmont. Said Minns, "I like working with the students. They get to see things they haven't seen before. You take all the team members for granted in an urban setting. This is eye-opening. It's wilderness medicine."