Adam Cooper BScN, RN is the Training Director for CTOMS. Following his career in critical care nursing, Adam has focused his efforts to advancing medical training for military, law enforcement, and high-risk professionals. For the past three years, he has been instrumental in developing and delivering cutting-edge training programs at CTOMS. In recognition of his significant contributions to healthcare and medical training, Adam was awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal, a testament to his dedication to saving lives and improving emergency medical response.

Growing up in a northern Alberta community, Adrienne developed a deep love for the outdoors and a strong connection to rural life. After earning her undergraduate degree in nursing, she honed her skills in neuro care before moving on to primary care nursing in remote northern Alberta. Along the way, she pursued a Master of Science in Global Health. Driven by her passion for nature and a commitment to high-quality healthcare, Adrienne aims to bridge her love for the wilderness with improving access to healthcare for underserved communities.

Raised with a love for the outdoors, Ainsley Johnstone is a medical student at McMaster University. She attended the 2024 CAWM conference and is very excited to be back for 2025! An avid camper and backpacker, she spends time every year exploring new landscapes, with her most recent adventures taking her to Moosonee and the Sahara desert. Her passion for wilderness and rural medicine is rooted in her experiences exploring off-the-grid locations and learning about healthcare in resource-limited environments. She is the Founder and Co-Chair of McMaster's Wilderness Medicine Interest Group. Dedicated to integrating wilderness medicine into medical education, Ainsley aims to combine her passion for backcountry exploration with providing care in underserved communities.

A rural and remote multidisciplinary general surgeon having practiced general surgery in the Yukon for over 20 years. In addition to clinical work he participates in medical leadership and frostbite research. He currently serves on the board of the Canadian Medical Association and the Yukon Medical Association. His interest in mountain medicine and frostbite in particular has been fostered by having lived and worked in the Yukon, British Columbia, and Iceland. He has been on a mission to modernize Canadian frostbite care since 2015 and has coauthored multiple peer reviewed frostbite related papers.

Christian Dean, DO, MS, DiMM, FAWM is a family medicine trained sports, wilderness, and expedition medicine physician overseeing races and expeditions all over the Rockies, Andes, Alps, and Himalaya. He's also recently dipped his toes into off-shore remote medicine for sailors and fishing vessels. When not in the backcountry, he has worked in Missoula, MT, Seattle, WA, and Jackson, WY as a hospitalist and mountain clinic physician for the last 10 years. He earned his DiMM in Nepal chasing his love of high altitude medicine and has been a physician for 3 Everest expeditions. Through mydocintow, llc, he provides compassionate and comprehensive on-site and on-call medical direction and advisory as well as one-off adventure medicine education programs all over the world. He is currently a sports medicine fellow in Denver.

Chris joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1994 where he served in the Infantry for 9 years and as a Search and Rescue Technician for 3, retiring in 2006. He deployed to Afghanistan in early 2002 where he was involved in managing the very first Canadian casualties of the war. Based on that experience, he would initiate the Tactical Combat Casualty Care training program within the military. After retiring in 2006, he started CTOMS, a tactical medical training and equipment distribution company. CTOMS has been providing unique training to military and law enforcement in high threat and austere environment medicine for almost two decades.

Connor Hass is a first-year medical student at the University of Calgary. Since 2020, he has worked and volunteered in the prehospital setting as a medical responder. Connor is the president of the Association of Campus Emergency Response Teams of Canada, a co-director of training for the University of Calgary Student Medical Response Team, and a Mass Gathering Medicine Calgary Core Committee member. In these roles, he has explored his interests in prehospital care while collaborating with fellow students. Outside his studies, Connor embraces his proximity to the Rocky Mountains as a Calgarian and enjoys spending time outdoors, whether hiking a mountain, running a trail, or fishing a creek.

Constance is a fourth-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, 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 had the privilege of speaking at last year’s CAWM conference—a highlight she absolutely loved. From the moment it ended, she was already counting down to this year’s event and is eagerly looking forward to connecting, learning, and sharing once again.

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 12 years with Ground SAR teams in NS, NL, NWT and BC. 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.

Doug Brown is a FRCPC emergency physician at Royal Columbian Hospital. He has been a search & rescue volunteer since 1996, is a helicopter & mountain rescue technician with Lions Bay & North Shore Rescue as well as a ski doctor for Whistler Blackcomb and Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing. He is one of the Canadian Society of Mountain Medicine, Diploma in Mountain Medicine faculty, is the chair of the Medical Advisory Committee for the British Columbia Search & Rescue Association and a founder of the BC SAR Support Network. He has a particular interest in wilderness and environmental emergencies, was the lead author of an accidental hypothermia review published in the New England Journal of Medicine and has been featured on EMRAP.

Gordon Giesbrecht, Ph.D. is a retired professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba where he studied human responses to exercise/work in extreme environments from 1991-2024. 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. He was recently awarded the Mount Logan Award from the Canadian Association of Wilderness Medicine.

James is a Paramedic, Ski Patroller, Educator, and Volunteer with Squamish Search and Rescue. He is the Air Operations Coordinator for Squamish SAR, and He is also directing an attempt to bring an internationally recognized helicopter based mountain rescue training program called AHEMS to Canada. James' eclectic experience from urban to remote wilderness rescue ranges from high acuity to high technicality, and seeks to use these experiences to be part of the discussion in continuing the progression of SAR performance in Canada.

Former outdoor instructor, expedition leader and special forces soldier. Now an ER doctor, medical director for Survivor TV show, member of UK government International Search and Rescue team, flight doctor for the London Air Ambulance and co medical director of World Extreme Medicine.

Dr. Welsman was a military medic for several years in the CAF prior to changing paths and pursing veterinary medicine and graduating from the Ontario Veterinary College in 2007. Dr Welsman's primary interest and passion lies with working police dogs due to her nearly 20 years as an RCMP spouse. She has spent the last decade mixing a love for teaching with the working dogs and teaching courses on various topics to dog handlers and police medics, including field emergency care, preventive medicine and conditioning programs. Since 2019 she has volunteered as the veterinarian for a non profit, Ned's Wish, which pays for medical bills for retired police and military dogs.

Kevin is a paramedic in Banff, working with Banff EMS since 2002, and has recently taken a position with TEAAM 6 Revelstoke. For 5 years, Kevin has ran the Banff Wilderness Care Conference after completing his DiMM and FAWM with the WMS. He is on the leadership team with the WMS DiMM program, teaching parts of the program at their winter and summer conferences. In 2020, Kevin became one of the first Certified Wilderness Paramedics in Canada and currently writes and reviews exam questions for the IBSC and oversees that certification. Kevin has lectured at the Banff Wilderness Care Conference, Paramedics Across Canada, and has helped with workshops for CAWM.

Dr Beatty is a passionate traveler, 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.

Matt Razon is a Physician Assistant with 24 years of Emergency Medicine experience working in a Level I Trauma Center. He has also worked in trauma orthopedics.
10 years ago Matt began lecturing for Wild Med Adventures, a Wilderness CME company offering adventure CME worldwide. He has completed his FAWM and uses his spare time to travel and lecture. Matt recently successfully summited Kilimanjaro. He also enjoys using his wilderness medicine experience to do volunteer work and has been to Haiti several times to offer medical care.

Matthew is a critical care flight paramedic working for British Columbia Emergency Health Services. He has worked as lead educator for the Advanced Care Paramedic program at The Justice Institute of British Columbia, and is currently a Paramedic Practice Educator for BCEHS. He is currently the director of www.canadianoutdoormed.com, a wilderness first aid training and risk management agency. Matthew holds a diploma in Adult Education from St FX, and a diploma in Outdoor Education from Columbia College. He lives in the Coast mountains in Squamish with his family and a rescue puppy.

Mike is a professional Mountain Rescue Specialist based out of Canmore working with Alberta Parks. He has been working with parks since the late 1990s and since then had responded to numerous backcountry accidents of all types throughout the region. He is one of the Founding members of the Canadian Mountain parks backcountry medical council that coordinates medical directors and rescue specialists between the National parks and Kananaskis region.  In addition to working in the rescue field Mike is also a professional member of both the Canadian avalanche association and the Association of Canadian Mountain guides and actively works for RK Heliski as well as private ski touring guiding work.

Dr. Melissa Bouwsema is an Emergency Medicine physician, with sub-specializations in Resuscitation and Reanimation Medicine and Prehospital and Retrieval Medicine. These interests converge in work surrounding the transitions in care of critically ill and injured patients, and inter-professional team dynamics. Originally from Alberta, she stereotypically developed a love of the mountains at a young age — when not bouncing between her many professional responsibilities, she loves to spend as much time outside as possible, whether that be on a hiking trail, a patio, or something else that allows her to inject some sunshine and social interaction into her day. She is the “outside-sy” one, in juxtaposition to her partner-in-chaos (presentation partner), Tegan Fletcher (the “outdoor-sy” one).

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.

Sean is a second-year medical student at the University of Alberta. Born and raised in Calgary, he has continuously worked to expand his mountain skillset to safely explore the vast Canadian wilderness. He has worked as bike and ski patrol in Calgary and the Bow Valley and has taught first aid across all three northern territories. When not studying, he is usually found biking, climbing, mountaineering, or volunteering with the Canadian Ski Patrol.

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.

Taylor is a first-year medical student at the University of Calgary and is involved in the University of Calgary’s Wilderness Medicine Society. Prior to starting medical school, she was working as a primary care paramedic. Taylor is highly interested in emergency and pre-hospital medicine. Outside of school and work, she loves to spend time outside in the mountains. She is excited about contributing to the field of wilderness medicine as she continues to grow her medical knowledge and outdoor skills.

Tegan Fletcher is a Critical Care Paramedic with Ornge, based out of northwestern Ontario. Her 16+ year career has focused on rural and remote retrievals — predominantly serving Indigenous communities only accessible by air, which has encouraged her passion for health equity and bringing evidence-based best practices to the patient (no matter how far away that patient may be). She has a talent for logistics and working in low-resource environments, and an interest in developing high-performing teams in those settings. Born and raised in the woods and lakes of Kipawa, Quebec, and with a natural inclination for “type 2 fun”, she is the “outdoor-sy” counterpart to Melissa Bouwsema’s “outside-sy” (partner-in-chaos on a typical day, and presentation partner for CAWM). 

William Cherniak is an emergency physician with training in family medicine and global public health. 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, a Medicaid-focused Shopify for clinicians that integrates a unique support system, AI-enabled automations to accelerate care and wireless medical devices. Bill has had research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, Academic Medicine, PLOS ONE and given numerous speeches in Europe and North America on digital health as well as global public health and development.