Emergency medicine is the medical speciality concerned with the care of illnesses or injuries requiring immediate medical attention. Emergency physicians specialize in providing care for unscheduled and undifferentiated patients of all ages. As first-line providers, in coordination with emergency medical services, they are primarily responsible for initiating resuscitation and stabilization and performing the initial investigations and interventions necessary to diagnose and treat illnesses or injuries in the acute phase. Emergency medical physicians generally practice in hospital emergency departments, pre-hospital settings via emergency medical services, and intensive care units. Still, they may also work in primary care settings such as urgent care clinics.
Emergency medical services (EMS), also known as ambulance services or paramedic services, are emergency services that provide urgent pre-hospital treatment and stabilisation for serious illness and injuries and transport to definitive care. They may also be known as a first aid squad, FAST squad, emergency squad, ambulance squad, ambulance corps, life squad or by other initialisms such as EMAS or EMARS.
The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) is a professional organization of emergency medicine physicians in the United States. ACEP publishes the Annals of Emergency Medicine and the Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians Open.
A medical director is a physician who provides guidance and leadership on the use of medicine in a healthcare organization. These include the emergency medical services, hospital departments, blood banks, clinical teaching services, and others. A medical director devises the protocols and guidelines for the clinical staff and evaluates them while they are in use.
Wilderness medicine is defined by difficult patient access, limited equipment, and environmental extremes. Today, wilderness or expedition medicine is practiced by Wilderness First Responders, Wilderness EMTs, Remote/Offshore/Wilderness Paramedics and Physicians on expeditions, in outdoor education, search and rescue, mountain rescue, remote area operations including research, exploration, and offshore oil platforms, as well as tactical environments. In mainland Europe, where mountain rescue is done by paid professionals, there are courses for physicians that help qualify them to be mountain rescue or expedition doctors. Many of these courses lead to an International Diploma in Mountain Medicine, which is recognized by the Union Internationale des Associations Alpinistes.
Wilderness first responders are individuals who are trained to respond to emergency situations in remote locations. They are part of a wide variety of wilderness medical providers who deal with medical emergencies that occur in wilderness settings. While wilderness first responder can generically refer to anyone providing first response, this term typically refers to individuals trained and certified with specific Wilderness First Responder (WFR) certification.
Excited delirium (ExDS), also known as agitated delirium (AgDS) or hyperactive delirium syndrome with severe agitation, is a widely rejected diagnosis characterized as a potentially fatal state of extreme agitation and delirium. It has typically been diagnosed postmortem in young adult black males who were physically restrained by law enforcement personnel at the time of death.
The Wilderness Medical Society was created on 15 February 1983 by three physicians from California, United States — Dr. Paul Auerbach, Dr. Ed Geehr, and Dr. Ken Kizer. It is the largest international non-profit membership organization devoted to addressing wilderness medicine challenges, more specifically defined as "medical care delivered in those areas where fixed or transient geographic challenges reduce availability of, or alter requirements for, medical or patient movement resources". It also publishes Wilderness & Environmental Medicine Journal, Wilderness Medicine Magazine, and Wilderness Medicine Clinical Practice Guidelines.
Paul Stuart Auerbach was an American physician and author in the academic discipline of wilderness medicine. He was the founder and past president of the Wilderness Medical Society. Auerbach was the editor for the Journal of Wilderness Medicine published by the Wilderness Medical Society from 1990 to 1995. Auerbach was also the author of a number of articles and books on topics such as emergency medicine, hazardous marine animals, and scuba diving, including two books of underwater photography.
Andy S. Jagoda is an American physician and Professor and Chair Emeritus of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He has edited and authored 14 books, including The Good Housekeeping Family First Aid Book and the textbook Neurologic Emergencies. He is an editor of the 9th edition of Rosen’s Emergency Medicine.
A wilderness medical emergency is a medical emergency that takes place in a wilderness or remote setting affinitive care. Such an emergency can require specialized skills, treatment techniques, and knowledge in order to manage the patient for an extended period of time before and during evacuation.
Wilderness medicine is a medical specialty concerned with medical care in remote, wilderness and expedition environments. The specialty includes prior planning, public health issues, a number of sub-specialties as well as responding to emergencies. One modern definition of wilderness medicine is "medical care delivered in those areas where fixed or transient geographic challenges reduce the availability of, or alter requirements for, medical or patient movement resources".
The Appalachian Center for Wilderness Medicine (ACWM) is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting wilderness medicine in the southern Appalachian region of the United States of America. Dr. Seth C. Hawkins, an emergency physician who specializes in EMS and wilderness medicine, founded ACWM in 2007 in the state of North Carolina. It is the first regional wilderness medicine non-profit of its kind in the United States. Contemporary authorities in wilderness medicine have noted its importance in establishing a mechanism for regionally pooling information and resources in a field that otherwise has little connection between local or regional experts. Critical to that effort have been uses of the internet in ways not previously seen in wilderness medicine.
The International Federation for Emergency Medicine (IFEM) is an organisation promoting international emergency medicine around the world. It is a consortium of over 70 national and regional emergency medicine organisations. IFEM organises the International Conference on Emergency Medicine (ICEM).
The International Conference on Emergency Medicine (ICEM) is a biennial conference on international emergency medicine for emergency physicians. It is organised by the International Federation for Emergency Medicine.
Gregory R. Ciottone is an American physician specializing in disaster medicine and counter-terrorism medicine. He is an associate professor of emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School and the founding director of the BIDMC Fellowship in Disaster Medicine, the first of its kind in a Harvard teaching hospital. As well, he holds the position of director for medical preparedness at the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative, a joint program of the Harvard T.H.Chan School of Public Health and the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government. He also serves as a consultant to the White House Medical Unit for the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations. In 2019 he was elected president of the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine. (WADEM).
William 'Will' R. Smith, is an emergency physician and wilderness medicine consultant who lectures about integrating combat medicine into wilderness rescues around the world. He started Wilderness & Emergency Medicine Consulting, a company that helps people with pre-trip planning, online medical support, travel medicine in remote areas and provides expert witness testimony in court cases related to wilderness medicine. As medical director for the National Park Service, he oversaw the largest rescue event ever to occur in Grand Teton National Park. He lives in Jackson, Wyoming, where he is an emergency medicine physician at St. John’s Medical Center.
The Carolina Wilderness EMS Externship (CWEMSE) is an out-of-hospital medical training for 4th year medical students and resident physicians interested in furthering their educational interests in wilderness EMS.
Wilderness & Environmental Medicine is a quarterly peer-reviewed medical journal covering wilderness medicine. It is the official journal of the Wilderness Medical Society and published its Wilderness Medical Society Clinical Practice Guidelines. The journal is published by Elsevier and the editor-in-chief is William D. Binder.
Rade B. Vukmir is an emergency ,critical care and neurocritical care physician. With a career spanning over three decades, he has held positions, including President of Critical Care Medicine Associates, Chief Clinical Officer for National Guardian Risk Retention Group, the ECI PSO, and Chairman of ECI Healthcare Partners Education and Risk Management Department. He is recognized as a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), American College of Chest Physicians, and the American College of Healthcare Executives. His work includes the authorship of 43 peer-reviewed medical journal articles, numerous book chapters and eleven books. Currently, he is a clinical professor at the Drexel University a position previously at University of Pittsburgh and Temple University.
