Actually, Champ, you need to reread the laws. Taking a course does not obligate you to anything other than to those in your party. Acting as a citizen could cause more problems as the Good Samaritan Act does not permit you to try first aid and things you read in a book way back when without a course. You would open yourself up for liability then as the act protects the average person acting in a prudent manner. And there are some basic aspects of consent that a course may help you implement in to your approach that the average person may not realize, and therefore be a liability. And a course doesn't force you to be a first responder. In order to be liable, you have to have a duty to act. If its somebody in your party, you have a duty. If you see some guys three climbs over, you have no duty to act. HOWEVER, once you initiate care, you have have accepted the responsibility and now have a duty and can not leave the patients until relieved by somebody of equal or higher training, obvious signs of death (depending on license type and environment), or the scene becomes unsafe. And if something happens while you are administering care, you a re compared to the standards of practice of your certification/license and what your peers of equivalent license would have done in the same situation. If I remember correctly, you are Canadian, and in all fairness, the laws may differ there and your statement may be accurate. However, here in the US, you are off base. But I agree with a lot of what you are saying otherwise.
Along those lines, the guide classes you guys speak of can open them up for liability too. If somebody takes their class and f's up, the guides have no backing of certifications or organizations to show that they could teach classes effectively or that they had the capacity to allow you to walk away and competently apply those skills. Again, scope of practice. Things get complicated when cash is exchanged for a service like that. Not saying its right or wrong. But it is what it is.
I'll be the lone one to stand alone a bit on this one. I do not think it is a huge thing to take a medical course. If it interests you and you want to be prepared to handle those situations, go for it. That's what first started me in my medical course. Everybody thinks they can be a hero with whatever skill they learn, but reality is a bit of a bitch and always isn't as straight forward as the classes seem. Armchair quarterbacks rattling off what should have happened are aplenty. And you can really run in to trouble with people overstepping their scope of practice. I remember one kid telling somebody to do this that and the other when person B was having some trouble breathing and cramping after a hard run. I told him to back off, in a polite professional manner, and kid a literally said "hey man, I'm first aid trained I got this." He was a bit dumbfounded when I rattled off my qualifications and told him to back off.
On the other hand, those skills are valuable. Two days after my WFR years back, my then girlfriend crashed be bike on the trails and had a major bleeder in her leg. Man was I jazzed to try to do something. The some jerk EMT-P had to spoil the party for me. (when she had her c-section I thought it was the coolest thing to see the doc jacking around in her. My smile was huge and I didn't even look at her face. So yeah, weird interests.) But I still sent other riders in our group on tasks to ensure safety of the scene in a wilderness environment. Things the jerk EMT-P didn't think of that seemed basic after establishing that mindset. EMT-P wasn't a real jerk, just killed my fun.
On that note, the WFR course helped with the aspect of scene analysis, but that is something we climbers train to do when sizing up a climb. In the end, the classes can be helpful and add another arrow to you quiver of skills, but nothing more. My ball and chain is a doc, and I'll trust my safety in the vertical world to my long haired, ultra bearded, spastic hippy partner long before her as he can figure stuff out and problem solve to rescue me in that environment. Just try to learn things when you can that make you a better climber and learn more skills. The time spent going over different bailing methods for 30 minutes saved my ass more times than the 3 hours covering strokes and MI's in my WFR class. But if my buddy starts getting chest pain on the hike, I would have been glad I had those 3 hours. Its great to ramble off acronyms and what ifs, but you have to look at the reality of the likelihood you would be in an event to use the skills. There's always a course you could take to learn this that or the other, like an avalanche course from trusted snow ranger
Certifications are great for protecting yourself from liability and knowing you learned the skills to a certain level, but the competency and ability to apply them is what counts.
