I just posted a new article over on the ghbledsoe.com website about a guy named Charles Ickes who is listed as a coauthor on some malaria research papers.
Ickes is interesting because he was an incarcerated prisoner at Stateville Penitentiary serving time for armed robbery at the time of the research publication.
If you are interested in Travel Medicine or Topical Medicine, the Ickes story is a fascinating historical tidbit from years gone by.
Hey guys.
Here at ExpedMed we've been working hard to put together yet another great conference agenda for our annual Expedition Medicine National Conference this September 28-30, 2012.
Since 2007 we've had this event in Washington, DC and we're pleased to announce the 2012 agenda. There are a few new names on the speaker list, and over the next few weeks we'll be introducing you to some of our new lecturers.
For those who want to make sure not to miss this exceptional eduational opportunity, we're already taking registrations. The event will once again be at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in downtown DC, and will cover many important topics related to medical care on expeditions and in remote locations.
So, without further ado, here's the agenda for our 2012 ExpedMed event in Washington, DC. Remember, all participants will receive 20 hours of Category I CME credits and our 700 page hardback textbook Expedition & Wilderness Medicine, free of charge.
8:00-10:00am The Expedition Medical Kit, Michael Callahan
9:00-10:00am Travel Immunizations, David Townes
10:00-10:30am Break
10:30-11:30am Living and Working Abroad, Gregory Bledsoe
11:30-12:30 High Altitude Medicine I, Peter Hackett
12:30-2pm Lunch
2:00pm-3:00pm Wilderness Medicine EMS, Will Smith
3:00pm-4:00pm High Altitude Medicine II, Peter Hackett
4:00-4:30pm Break
4:30-5:30pm Wilderness Mass Casualty Incident, Will Smith
5:30pm-6:30pm Disaster Medicine, Christina Catlett
8:00-9:00am Medical Direction in the Wilderness, Will Smith
9:00-10:00am Patients at Altitude, Peter Hackett
10:00-10:30am Break
10:30-11:30am Bringing Combat Medicine to the Wilderness, Will Smith
11:30-12:30 Malaria Prevention and Chemoprophylaxis, Alan Magill
12:30-2pm Lunch
2pm-3pm Telemedicine, David Townes
3pm-4pm Getting High for Science, Peter Hackett
4:00-4:30pm Break
4:30-5:30pm Rabies, Alan Magill
5:30pm-6:30pm Reptile Envenomations, Michael Callahan
8:00-9:00am Dive Medicine, Matthew Partrick
9:00-10:00am Self-Treatment for Expeditions, Alan Magill
10:00-10:30am Break
10:30-11:30am When Animals Attack, Christina Catlett
11:30-12:30 Arthropod Envenomations, Michael Callahan
Dr. Jerri Mendelson is a Dermatologist practicing in the northwest United States. She also is a former wildlife biologist and a recognized expert in Wilderness Medicine. In this video, Dr. Mendelson talks about her career and how she made the transition from wildlife biologist to Dermatologist. Dr. Mendelson's bio is below.
Dr. Jeri Kersten Mendelson is a board-certified dermatologist. She began her professional career as a wildlife biologist with a degree from the University of Wyoming. Her wildlife jobs took her to Wyoming, northern Thailand and eastern Oregon where she worked as a big game biologist for the Ochoco National Forest.
After leaving the Forest Service she attended the University of Oregon where she received a Masters degree studying bat echolocation. It was at the U of O where she met her husband and for the next several years followed him to Northwestern University, University of Pittsburgh and finally to the University of Arkansas for his post doctoral training in neurophysiology and physical therapy. Along this journey she taught anatomy and physiology and general biology. She attended the University of Arkansas medical school and dermatology residency program while her husband ran a medical research lab and practiced physical therapy. Together, they raised two active Razorback-loving boys.
Dr. Mendelson is a certified Dermatologist, MD FAAD and currently practices in Medford. As a clinical associate professor at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), Dr. Mendelson also teaches dermatology to family practice residents during their rotations in the clinic. She has continued her educational interests by working with school groups and community organizations in sun/skin awareness programs. Jeri is a part time speaker and faculty member for the Wilderness Medicine Society.
I've been organizing and directing medical conferences since 2006. One of the benefits of these events is that I have the opportunity to meet many fascinating and inspiring individuals. Of all these individuals, one of my favorites is Dr. Howard Donner.
Howard is a hilarious person who I first heard speak at a Wilderness Medicine conference when I was still a resident. Years later, Howard authored the first chapter of our Expedition & Wilderness Medicine textbook, and has spoken numerous times at our ExpedMed events.
In this interview, I sit down with Howard to hear not only about his career, but also about the history of how Wilderness Medicine began as an organized discipline. As always, Howard's interview-- complete with outtakes and side discussions-- is lively and fun and provides a number of insights into how someone can build a career in Wilderness Medicine. I've posted his bio below the video.
Howard Donner is a Family Practice physician and a well-known expert in Wilderness Medicine. Dr. Donner served as an Expedition Physician on the 1988 Kangchenjunga Expedition, the 1997 NOVA Everest Expedition, and as a medical officer on the Denali Medical Research Project. As co-author of Field Guide to Wilderness Medicine, Dr. Donner is a frequent national lecturer and has provided medical support as a volunteer for the National Park Service. In addition to his medical expertise, Dr. Donner works as a commercial pilot and independent filmmaker.
In this video clip, Dr. Michael Callahan discusses his career in Wilderness Medicine and gives advice to other physicians about how they might develop a similar career. Dr. Callahan is a well-known expert in Wilderness Medicine. We've posted his bio below the video.
Dr. Michael Callahan is a Program Manager for Biodefense and Mass-Casualty Care at the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) and an Associate Physician at the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Current wilderness medicine activities include oversight of clinical research programs to protect U.S. military personnel during sustained, extreme operations, including projects in Rapid Altitude Acclimatization and Immune Hardening. Before joining DARPA, Dr Callahan was principal investigator for the S.E. Asian Polyvalent Antivenin Trial in Na Trang, Vietnam. He maintains disaster medicine billets with two international disaster response organizations.
In 2008, I had the opportunity to sit down with one of my medical heroes, Professor David Warrell of Oxford. Professor Warrell has had an incredible career in Tropical Medicine, having published over 400 research papers and lived in multiple countries over the courser of the past 40 years. I pulled this interview from the ExpedMed archives because it is simply so good.
In this interview, I ask Professor Warrell about his career and ask how someone could build a career in Tropical Medicine today. Below the video is a brief summary of Professor Warrell's bio.
Professor David Warrell is now Emeritus Professor of Tropical Medicine and Honorary Fellow of St. Cross College at the University of Oxford, UK. After training at Oxford, St Thomas’s Hospital and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, London, UK, he has lived and worked as a physician, teacher, researcher and expedition doctor in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Tanzania, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. He is senior editor of the Oxford Textbook of Medicine and Essential Malariology and the Oxford Handbook of Expedition and Wilderness Medicine and has published more than 400 research papers and textbook chapters on malaria, rabies, relapsing fevers and other infectious and tropical diseases, comparative respiratory physiology, respiratory diseases, herpetology, venomous animals, envenoming and plant and chemical poisoning. He is a consultant to the World Health Organization (on malaria, rabies, snake bites, antivenom production), British Army, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Medical Research Council, Royal Geographical Society, Zoological Society of London and Earth Watch International. He is a past President of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and International Federation for Tropical Medicine and Honorary Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Ceylon College of Physicians.
For those of you who are interested in learning more about Expedition Medicine or Wilderness Medicine, I'd like to mention our textbook, Expedition & Wilderness Medicine, that was recently published by Cambridge University Press.
This textbook is used as the syllabus for our Expedition Medicine National Conference and also as a teaching tool for many other courses and organizations around the globe.
The textbook is a hardcover text over 700 pages in length, with full-color photos and diagrams. We recruited more than sixty experts from around the world who contributed content for this project. Contributors include many notable individuals such as
Richard Carmona, MD, MPH, FACS: 17th Surgeon General of the United States
Luanne Freer, MD, FACEP, FAWM: past president of the Wilderness Medical Society and founder and director of Everest ER
Ken Kamler, MD: Vice President of The Explorers Club and author of Doctor on Everest
Richard Williams, MD, FACS: Chief Health and Medical Officer for NASA
Peter Hackett, MD: Director, Institute of Altitude Medicine
We have been pleased to read many favorable reviews of our book in multiple journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA. Here's an excerpt from the JAMA review:
Expedition&Wilderness Medicine, edited by Bledsoe, Manyak, and Townes, is a comprehensive guide to the multitude of issues facing the expedition physician. The book is organized into 3 sections covering expedition planning, specific and unique environments, and specific wilderness illnesses and injuries. The comprehensive and often humorous chapters have been edited in a style that allows for easy reading, and they include numerous excellent illustrations.
Several of the chapters are written by some of the world’s authorities on the topic. Not only have many of the authors published widely on their areas of expertise, they have spent considerable time in the field. The authors have diverse experience ranging from serving as the expedition physician on a climb of an 8000-m peak in the Himalayas to providing medical care to a patient injured thousands of feet underground in a Mexican cave. This experience—and the willingness of many of the authors to illustrate ways to avoid future problems by describing their own misadventures in the field—contribute to the strength of this text.
Expedition & Wilderness Medicine is a must-read before any expedition. It carefully details what an expedition medical kit should contain, along with details on what to consider taking along for toxicological and dental emergencies. Although this book is aimed at the expedition and wilderness medicine physician, many of the chapters are superb summaries of core emergency medicine knowledge that are better distilled and presented than chapters in some more traditional textbooks of emergency medicine. We recommend this text to all who practice acute care medicine and all physicians who hike, climb, or vacation outside the city or who might encounter anyone else who does.
Jones ID, and CM Slovis. JAMA. 2009;302(4):442-44
We'll be writing more about opportunities in Wilderness Medicine and Expedition Medicine here on the ExpedMed blog, but for those of you who need something to begin your journey, pick up a copy of our textbook online or attend our Expedition Medicine National Conference and receive the book for free.
For those of you who are interested in learning more about Expedition Medicine or Wilderness Medicine, I'd like to mention our textbook, Expedition & Wilderness Medicine, that was recently published by Cambridge University Press.
This textbook is used as the syllabus for our Expedition Medicine National Conference and also as a teaching tool for many other courses and organizations around the globe.
The textbook is a hardcover text over 700 pages in length, with full-color photos and diagrams. We recruited more than sixty experts from around the world who contributed content for this project. Contributors include many notable individuals such as
Richard Carmona, MD, MPH, FACS: 17th Surgeon General of the United States
Luanne Freer, MD, FACEP, FAWM: past president of the Wilderness Medical Society and founder and director of Everest ER
Ken Kamler, MD: Vice President of The Explorers Club and author of Doctor on Everest
Richard Williams, MD, FACS: Chief Health and Medical Officer for NASA
Peter Hackett, MD: Director, Institute of Altitude Medicine
We have been pleased to read many favorable reviews of our book in multiple journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA. Here's an excerpt from the JAMA review:
Expedition&Wilderness Medicine, edited by Bledsoe, Manyak, and Townes, is a comprehensive guide to the multitude of issues facing the expedition physician. The book is organized into 3 sections covering expedition planning, specific and unique environments, and specific wilderness illnesses and injuries. The comprehensive and often humorous chapters have been edited in a style that allows for easy reading, and they include numerous excellent illustrations.
Several of the chapters are written by some of the world’s authorities on the topic. Not only have many of the authors published widely on their areas of expertise, they have spent considerable time in the field. The authors have diverse experience ranging from serving as the expedition physician on a climb of an 8000-m peak in the Himalayas to providing medical care to a patient injured thousands of feet underground in a Mexican cave. This experience—and the willingness of many of the authors to illustrate ways to avoid future problems by describing their own misadventures in the field—contribute to the strength of this text.
Expedition & Wilderness Medicine is a must-read before any expedition. It carefully details what an expedition medical kit should contain, along with details on what to consider taking along for toxicological and dental emergencies. Although this book is aimed at the expedition and wilderness medicine physician, many of the chapters are superb summaries of core emergency medicine knowledge that are better distilled and presented than chapters in some more traditional textbooks of emergency medicine. We recommend this text to all who practice acute care medicine and all physicians who hike, climb, or vacation outside the city or who might encounter anyone else who does.
Jones ID, and CM Slovis. JAMA. 2009;302(4):442-44
We'll be writing more about opportunities in Wilderness Medicine and Expedition Medicine here on Freelance MD, but for those of you who need something to begin your journey, pick up a copy of our textbook online or attend our Expedition Medicine National Conference and receive the book for free.
Whether from the upsurge of "exotic" diseases popping up in the developed world, or a general curiosity in alternative medical careers, interest in Tropical Medicine appears to be growing. At our ExpedMed conferences on Expedition and Wilderness Medicine I am consistently approached by physicians who are interested in learning even more about Tropical Medicine and/or careers in tropical health.
There are a variety of ways a physician can obtain training in Tropical Medicine. For most, an intensive four or five day CME conference like our ExpedMed events will suffice. However, for those who want to go even deeper into the world of Tropical Medicine, the next step is earning the Diploma of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (DTM&H).
The DTM&H is a certification program endorsed by the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (ASTM&H). Diploma recipients must receive didactic training in Tropical Medicine from an ASTM&H approved course and then successfully pass a test of knowledge administered by the ASTM&H.
Currently, there are 18 approved diploma courses around the world. A full list of the approved courses can be seen here. However, while all the courses are good, two continue to set themselves apart in terms of prestige and the endorsements I hear among those who practice Tropical Medicine as a career focus: the annual course at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and The Gorgas Course in Clinical Tropical Medicine .
The Diploma in Tropical Medicine & Hygiene course at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine begins each January and runs until March and costs approximately $7,700 to attend. The course is limited to 70 students who rotate between lectures and clinical exposure in the Hospital for Tropical Diseases where tropical medicine cases are seen. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has been been at the forefront of of integrated medical education for over 100 years and is recognized world-wide as a leader in Tropical Medicine education. Students can expect a broad exposure to tropical disease taught by experts from around the world.
The only drawbacks to the London program that I have heard relate to the city of London itself. First, the expense of living in London can be prohibitive for some due to the cost of transportation and living expenses in the city. Also, since the course takes place in a developed city, I have heard some reports that the clinical exposure can be hit or miss since it is dependent on what cases are available. However, participants still give the program overwhelmingly glowing reviews and everyone I spoke to said they would wholeheartedly recommend the course to interested peers.
The Gorgas course is directed by Dr. David O. Freedman of the University of Alabama-Birmingham. The Gorgas course is also run each spring and is based in Lima, Peru. Participants live in Lima for the duration of the 3 month program. While the Gorgas course does not have the long history of the London program, it is famous for the quality of its clinical exposure and past participants raved to me about the incredible breadth and depth of cases they examined and treated. Students rotate between classroom work and rounds in the Instituto de Medicina Tropical (Institute of Tropical Medicine). Two field trips are included in the curriculum- a trip to high altitude in Cusco, and a trip into the Amazon jungle.
From all accounts, the teaching at the Gorgas course is superb and the clinical exposure unparalleled. The only drawback to the Gorgas course is the limited number of positions offered each year. Only 30 positions are available and applicants come from all over the world. The application process takes place over a year before the course begins, so application in the fall of 2009 is for a position in the 2011 class. The cost currently is $6,395 which includes flights within Peru and accommodations on both field trips.
One of the benefits of both courses is the network of peers a participant develops during the durations of their studies. Since both courses draw students from around the world, past participants tell me that one of their biggest enjoyments was learning from their peers and kindling friendships with individuals who live on the other side of the globe. The Gorgas course even has a Facebook group for its graduates, and both courses have distinguished faculty and supportive alumni networks.
Our ExpedMed faculty has ties to both programs. Dr. Michael Callahan and Dr. David Townes are both graduates of the London course, while Dr. David Warrell and Dr. Alan Magill teach at the Gorgas course.
In sum, for those interested in further training in Tropical Medicine, there are numerous resources available. If you are not sure if Tropical Medicine is for you, try attending one of our ExpedMed events where you will get 3-5 days of Tropical Medicine from some of the premiere lecturers in the world. After attending one of our events you will not only have a much better grasp of Tropical Medicine, but you will feel more confident deciding whether the investment of time and resources for one of the more intensive programs is right for you.
Here's a quick video of the Hudson Bay in Churchill, Manitoba.
The brisk wind was whipping up the sea foam and splattering our crew and cameras.
