**Refunds are not permitted after October 18, 2024.

**The deadline to switch between in-person and virtual registration is October 23, 2024.

Abby Rowe is the president and owner of Wilderness Medical Associates International and a nationally registered Advanced EMT. Abby has been instructing for WMA International since 2018 and has 25 years of experience leading expeditions and teaching outdoor leadership and technical skills. She is also a member of and trainer for the Mount Desert Island Search and Rescue Team and is an avid sailor, climber, and skier. Abby holds a B.S. from Cornell University and an M.A. in Higher Education from Boston College.

Alana Hawley is an FRCPC Emergency Medicine physician at Penticton Regional Hospital in BC and a Clinical Instructor with UBC. Alana is a Wilderness Medicine practitioner, educator, and researcher. She completed a Wilderness Medicine fellowship at the

University of Utah as well as the Diploma in Mountain Medicine (DiMM) and the Fellowship of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine (FAWM). Alana currently serves on the FAWM Committee Board and volunteers as the Medical Advisor of Penticton Search and Rescue.

Personal interests include climbing, diving, mountain biking, skiing, and mountaineering.

Beau Blois, his wife Laura, and their three children are dedicated community builders and stewards of the land in Nova Scotia. Central to their efforts is the Round Barn, a lively hub hosting various events, from live music and art exhibitions to yoga and dance classes. In recognition of his commitment to sustainability, Beau was honored as Nova Scotia Woodlot Owner of the Year in 2023. In addition to his roles as a cultivator of both land and community, Beau serves as a trusted family doctor for the Millbrook First Nation Community. Since 2010, he has been a steadfast provider of emergency care at the Colchester East Hants Hospital.

Bree Kullman has enjoyed a 15 year career as a wilderness guide and instructor, including work with Alberta Parks, the ACC, Outward Bound, and private operators. She has been a member of the ACMG for 9 years, serving on committees and as a CISM peer responder. Bree has also served with Alberta SAR. She holds a degree in International Development and worked throughout Latin America. These experiences led Bree to study medicine at the University of Calgary, where she is a clerk interested in emergency medicine. Bree is an avid climber, and cherishes on-demand hot water, flush toilets, and sunscreen.

Brendan is an emergency and anesthesia trained physician based in Mont Tremblant, Quebec, Canada. He is cursed with a background in Engineering and a personal interest in efficiecny and quality improvement both in the public hospital sphere as well as a medical director at music festivals. He has been known to defend Master of Reality as the best Sabbath album.

Christian Dean is a family, sports, wilderness, and expedition medicine physician overseeing races and expeditions all over the Rockies, Andes, Alps, and Himalaya. He has worked in Missoula, MT and Jackson Hole, WY as a hospitalist and mountain-clinic physician for the last 10 years with a 2 year stint in Seattle, WA. He earned his DiMM through UIAA/ICAR in Nepal and Wilderness Medical Society’s FAWM. Through MyDocInTow, llc, he provides compassionate and comprehensive on-site or on-call medical direction and advisory as well as adventure medicine education programs all over the world. He is currently a sports medicine fellow in Denver.

Constance is a third-year medical student at the University of Ottawa, dedicated to advocating for health equity and empathetic primary care in pediatric and underserved communities. With a passion for rural pediatric healthcare, she embraces her goofy theater side and love for the outdoors, hoping to bring her upbeat energy to this setting one day. Originally from Vancouver, BC, you can be sure to find Constance outdoors —skiing, hiking, camping, road biking, or bikepacking…you name it! She recently participated in the CAWM Wilderness Medicine Race and is eagerly anticipating this conference.

Cyril is a professional Mountain Guide and EMS Instructor with over forty-five years of experience in mountaineering and climbing and four decades of experience as a professional guide. He operates a sole proprietorship which has provided mountain guiding services with a specialization in high angle rope rescue, mountain leadership, avalanche safety and wilderness emergency care. Cyril was the leader of the team that created their EMT program and Parks Emergency Responder program which he taught to national park wardens across western and northern Canada for a decade. He currently teaches wilderness emergency care to outdoor professionals.

Dave is a Family/ER Physician living in Kamloops BC. He works as a Medical Officer with the Canadian Armed Forces, and has deployed overseas with both the Army and the Navy. He has volunteered for over 10 years with Ground SAR teams in NS, NL, NWT and BC, and he completed his Fellowship in the Academy of Wilderness Medicine (FAWM) in 2020. Dave was one of the co-founders of CAWM in 2020 and served as the Association's Founding President from 2020-2023. Dave’s favourite outdoor activities include paddle sports, diving, orienteering, backcountry hiking and sport climbing.

Dr Debbie Pestell served in the Canadian Forces for 21 years, including ten as the national Diving and Submarine Medicine Consultant after completing a fellowship in diving and hyperbaric medicine with the US Air Force and US Navy, and a Master’s Degree in Public Health at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Since retiring from the military in 2011, she has worked in the Hyperbaric Medicine Unit at the QEII Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, NS and provides medical support to commercial divers and diving operations across the Maritimes. Dr Pestell teaches diving and hyperbaric medicine courses internationally, and is the Past-President of the Canadian Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Association (CUHMA).

Doug Brown is a FRCPC emergency physician at Royal Columbian Hospital. He has been a search & rescue volunteer since 1996, is a BC mountain rescue technician as well as a ski doctor at Whistler Blackcomb and Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing. He does work with the international commission for mountain emergency medicine and the Canadian society of mountain medicine. He has a particular interest in wilderness and environmental emergencies, and was the lead author on a review of accidental hypothermia published in the November 15, 2012 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. His work was featured on an EMRAP episode in January 2014.

Eryn Bugbee is a second-year medical student at the University of Calgary and an exec with the UofC’s Wilderness Medicine Society. Her previous studies include a Master's degree in Applied Immunology at the University of Toronto where she studied the role of immune cell signalling during Multiple Sclerosis. She is passionate about the outdoors as a space that is both enjoyable and accessible to all, and works in her personal life to decrease barriers to the outdoors through free education channels. Outside of her medical studies, Eryn can be found hiking with her rescue dog Piper or returning to her competitive swimming roots and finding a body of water to safely swim in!

Garrett is a third year Emergency Medicine Resident at McMaster university. He has a strong interest in curriculum development, medical simulation, and novel medical education modalities. He has 15 years’ experience as a medic in the Canadian Armed Forces with background and emphasis in exercise, curriculum, and training development. He has led the development of the Wilderness Medicine Challenge. This Canadian Armed Forces organized event offered to medical students has so far seen three iterations of medical students gain pre-hospital and wilderness medical exposure through intensive 1-2 day workshops and simulation events.

Gordon Giesbrecht, Ph.D. is a Senior Scholar at the University of Manitoba where he studied human responses to exercise/work in extreme environments from 1991-2024. He was recently awarded the Mount Logan Award from the Canadian Association of Wilderness Medicine. Gordon has 120+ refereed publications on thermal stress in humans and vehicle submersion fatalities and survival. He has helped create instructional educational programs for drowning prevention and treatment, such as Cold Water Boot Camp; Baby It’s Cold Outside; and written protocols used by Emergency Response Operators around the world.

John Bessonette is an Advanced Care Paramedic with 36 years of experience working for EHS Nova Scotia and is currently the Emergency Preparedness and Special Operations Supervisor. He is a graduate of Acadia University with a BSc in Biology and Diploma in Business Management from SMU. John recent focus with EHS includes CBRNE Advanced to ICS Incident Commander, Planning Section Chief and Logistics Chief (ICS Canada), Infection Control and clinical research coordination. John is an avid kitesurfer, sailing and outdoors enthusiast. He is the recipient of the EMS Exemplary Service Medal, Long Service award and Queens Jubilee Medal.

25 years ago in a Twin Otter with a patient in septic shock & IV lines frozen solid, Kavi realized medical school had really not fully prepared him for austere resus, polar bears & skidoo medevacs in N. Quebec’s Nunavik & James Bay. After many WTF moments, he looked outside medicine & took lessons from other performance under pressure disciplines such as whitewater kayaking, combat sports and tactical medicine. 15 years later he returned to residency for his CCFP-Emergency Medicine to bridge the rural-urban divide in emergency medical education. He luckily stumbled upon CAWM and has found a happy, hardworking group of likeminded passionate people!

Dr Beatty is a passionate traveller, cook and educator who loves trees, and can be found discovering trails or teaching her kid what you can and can’t eat in the wilderness. When not enjoying the outdoors, she works as an Emergency Physician at the QEII Health Sciences Centre and the IWK Children’s Health Centre in Halifax, NS, is an Assistant Professor with Dalhousie University Department of Emergency Medicine, a Medical Consultant with the Atlantic Canada Poison Centre and EHS, and an AIME instructor. She is passionate about Wilderness Medicine and Medical Education, running the annual Wilderness Medicine Retreat for Dalhousie EM residents.

Dr Lynne Hoole is a GP surgeon-anaesthetist based in South Africa. Lynne has additional qualifications in paeds and emergency as well as the FAWM. She spent 13 years working for a number of state-run hospitals in South Africa in a range of disciplines. She became interested in pre-hospital medicine early in her career and has worked in wheeled vehicles, aircraft and boats: she looks forward to adding trains in the future to complete the set!

She has spent the last 9 years working in remote and austere environments from the Antarctic to the Sahara, always stealing a little bit of knowledge from each encounter and hoping to leave others the better for her having been there.

Dr. Matthew D. White is an exercise and environmental physiologist. His basic research focuses on resolving mechanisms of control and regulation of human cardiorespiratory responses at rest and during exercise at altitude, in hyperbaric as well as in cold and/or hot environments. His applied research themes include i) human heat and cold acclimation for sport and military, ii) R&D plus testing of technical apparel for extreme environments and iii) assessing performance of Search and Rescue (SAR) emergency shelters.

Based in Squamish, BC, Miles has been practicing wilderness medicine since 1991 in SAR across western Canada, has been a paramedic since 1997, and was a pro ski patroller at Blackcomb from 2004-2022. As TEAAM Aeromedical president, and flight paramedic, and with speciality skill sets in helicopter hoist and longline rescue, mountain rescue and swift water rescue, Miles has been performing rescues and repatriations more than half his life. With a small business called SARMed, that focuses on teaching wilderness medicine for SAR and guides, wilderness medicine is his life.

Neal Pollock holds a Research Chair in Hyperbaric and Diving Medicine and is an Associate Professor in Kinesiology at Université Laval in Québec, Canada. He was previously Research Director at Divers Alert Network (DAN) in Durham, North Carolina. His academic training is in zoology, exercise physiology and environmental physiology. His research interests focus on human health and safety in extreme environments. He is an editor emeritus of the journal Wilderness & Environmental Medicine.

Pascal lives with his family in Mahone Bay, NS - undeniably for the best sailing east of Desolation Sound BC. After over a decade of rural/ remote emerg work throughout Canada, and a past role as Associate Medical Director for Halifax-based PRAXES Medical Group, he continues to serve as an on-call emergency telemedicine physician, providing medical support for remote workers in some of the most challenging environments on the planet. Well aware of the impacts of the Anthropocene, Pascal also serves as a passionate cleantech hustler and founding partner of Star Power Atlantic, working to lower the massive carbon footprint of the Canadian film industry.

Born in prairies and raised on the coast, Rayna Sharma has served as both a strength and conditioning coach for the Canadian Armed Forces and as a human performance researcher at the Department of National Defense. An active ACMG member working towards her rock guide certification, Rayna is grateful for mentors who fostered her love of mountain sports. Her experiences have led her to pursue medicine at the University of Calgary where she is currently a first-year medical student and CAWM Medical Learner Interest Group Co-Chair known for being a self-proclaimed donut critic.

Dr. Sarah Feaver, MD, CCFP(EM) DiDDM is a rural and remote family and emergency physician based out of Alberta with a passion for adventure and exploration. She has worked tirelessly to deliver compassionate care to patients in some of the most remote corners of Canada. A self-proclaimed mountain girl at heart, she is happiest when scaling towering peaks, exploring remote wilderness areas, or skiing fresh powder lines. In recent years, Sarah has rekindled her love of the ocean and currently spends half the year sailing with her family on a slow circumnavigation of the globe.

Shaelene is a third-year medical student at the University of Ottawa. She is passionate about rural and remote healthcare and hopes to work in environments that support patients in low-resource settings. She has developed an interest for musculoskeletal-focused medicine stemming from her love for outdoor activities and competitive dance. Shaelene is the current CGSTA Ottawa co-chair leading events focusing on surgical opportunities and challenges in resource-scarce global health settings. Shaelene has developed a passion for outdoor exploration growing up near the Rocky Mountains, canoeing in Algonquin Park, and travelling the world with a recent trek up Kilimanjaro with co-presenter Constance!

Dr. Roy is an intensivist-"wildernist" with a specific interest in very remote environments. He holds three diplomas in Mountain Medicine as well as a post-graduate Diploma in Remote and Offshore Medicine. He is co-program director of the WildernessMD/McGill University Resident Physician Elective in Wilderness Medicine and director of Canada's only sub-specialty Diploma in Mountain Medicine, the Diploma in Wilderness & Expedition Medicine. He is active internationally in this field and sits on the Executive Committee of the International Society for Mountain Medicine, the Medical Commission of the International Commission of Alpine Rescue, and the Research Committee of the Wilderness Medical Society.

Svea was born in Behchokǫ̀, Northwest Territories and grew up in the Okanagan.

She is a Critical Care trained RN who works in both ICU and Emergency at Kelowna General Hospital, and enjoys rural contracts in Northern BC clinics and hospitals. Prior to nursing, Svea was a creative director and designer.

Svea is passionate about nature, hiking, backcountry skiing, and traveling.

Dr. Jain grew up in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia where he received his BSc from Acadia University in 1993 and his MD from Dalhousie University, Halifax in 1999. He is an emergency physician with a special interest in disaster medicine having completed a MSc in Disaster Medicine and currently completing his PhD. He serves as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces with multiple deployments completed in combat and humanitarian framework. His area of focus is damage control resus in austere conditions and the use of UAV’s in Disaster medicine. He has been decorated for his leadership in multiple crisis situations.

William Cherniak BSc MD MPH CCFP(EM)/DABFM is an Adjunct Professor with Northwestern University, Associate Faculty at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto’s Department of Family and Community Medicine, Division of Emergency Medicine. He is a co-founder and board chair of Bridge to Health Medical and Dental Canada & USA and the founder and CEO of Rocket Doctor Inc. Bill has had research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, Academic Medicine, PLOS ONE and given a variety presentations across Europe and North America on point of care ultrasound, global public health and development.