Celebrating Our 25th

Posted on | March 26, 2008 | Comments Off on Celebrating Our 25th

Wilderness Medical Society 25th Anniversary and Annual Meeting to be held in Snowmass, Colorado

It is a great pleasure to announce the 25th Anniversary and Annual Meeting of the Wilderness Medical Society (WMS). It’s hard to believe that it has been 25 years since I collaborated with Ed Geehr, MD and Ken Kizer, MD to create the WMS. "Combining Your Profession With Your Passion" has been the theme since the beginning, and the meeting this summer is no exception. You can register and learn more about the meeting at the WMS website, specifically at the link to the meeting.

The meeting will be held in Snowmass, Colorado, and will feature up to 49.5 Continuing Medical Education (CME) and 46.25 Fellowship of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine (FAWM) credit hours for participants, including lectures, skills instruction, 49 different workshops, special evening presentations, and a WMS 25th anniversary gala celebration. The Wilderness Medicine Skills Practicum will be presented by the Wilderness Medicine Institute (WMI) of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), and Military Medicine Lessons: Applications in a Wilderness Environment will be another, additional special pre-conference session.

The evening events are outstanding, and include "The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," featuring National Geographic Society grantee Jonathan Waterman; "What’s Your Everest? – Combining Your Profession with Your Passion," featuring Dr. Luanne Freer; "Public and Global Health Issues in 2008: A Surgeon General’s Perspective," featuring Richard H. Carmona, M.D., the 17th Surgeon General of the United States; and the WMS 25th Anniversary Celebration, with reception, silent auction, dinner and awards, and the first-ever "Wilderness Ball."

The faculty for the meeting is a "who’s who" of wilderness medicine, including Howard Backer, Brad Bennett, Jolie Bookspan, Michael Callahan,Tom DeLoughery, Lance Ferguson, Peter Hackett, Gordon Giesbrecht, Colin Grissom, Eric Johnson, Lee Kaplan, Peter Kummerfeldt, Jay Lemery, Mel Otten, Phil Rasori, Brownie Schoene, Joe Serra, Chris Van Tilburg, and many others.

Please make plans to join us as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the WMS with one of the year’s outstanding meetings. I look forward to seeing many of you in Snowmass.

(Paul Auerbach, MD, is a clinical professor of surgery in the Division of Emergency Medicine at Stanford University and chief medical officer for Healthline Networks. He can be reached at [email protected]. Opinions expressed by Health Commentary guest bloggers do not necessarily represent the views of Health Commentary.)