Sarah Spelsberg

MD, FAWM, FEWM

Secretary & Newsletter Editor

Speaker Bio – Sarah Spelsberg MD, FAWM, FEWM

 

Sarah graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Masters Physician Assistant from Barry University, and MD from Saint James School of Medicine. She is the Director of US Operations for World Extreme Medicine, faculty for the Northeastern University Extreme Medicine Graduate Certificate Program, Medical Lead for Project NEPTUNE 100 and PGY2 Emergency Medicine at UNC Southeastern. She is a FAWM - Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine and FEWM - Fellow of Extreme and Wilderness Medicine. 

She spent the first ten years of her career as an ambulance and search and rescue medic in Telluride, Colorado. Most of her working time as a PA was been spent in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Mayo Clinic, where she holds Assistant Professor academic rank, and out in the Emergency Department of the IFHS Clinic on the Island of Unalaska/Dutch Harbor out in The Aleutian Islands, Alaska (home of the TV show Deadliest Catch). 

She is the Expedition Medicine Column Editor for the Wilderness Medicine Magazine, coauthor of a few frequently cited articles, book chapters, several Wilderness Breaking News articles, and is the author of the blog Rogue Medical. She has had the privilege to volunteer assist in medevacs and casevacs in the Bering Sea/Aleutian islands involving Coast Guard C130s as well as helicopter medevacs. 

She further expands awareness of Wilderness Medicine by serving as a podcast host for World Extreme Medicine. Wilderness Emergency Medicine, Marine, Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine, and Sports Medicine/Orthopedics are her passions and she loves being outdoors. She has ongoing research on the effects of sustained existence in undersea habitats, the physiologic effects of free and breath hold diving, wound care adjuncts in the backcountry, improvised tourniquets and traction devices, the effects of weather and bird populations on incidence of vector borne disease, the effects of melting polar ice on north passage medevac operations, and other global health related interests.