Wilderness Medicine Program
The department of emergency medicine is proud to offer a robust wilderness medicine experience and education for our residents and medical students in the Upstate. We are lucky to be able to practice emergency medicine in the southern Appalachian region where the natural environment is center to the ethos of our community. From long hiking trails, to hundreds of miles of singletrack, to cliff faces for climbing and deep lakes for diving, we are surrounded by outdoor activities. The proximity to such varied terrain also means regular interactions with the variety of pathologies found within the scope of wilderness medicine. In the Upstate of South Carolina, we frequently care for patients who suffer injury or adverse interactions with the wild and austere.
We recognize the unique clinical environment that the outdoors provides, and so we offer an educational environment to help our students and residents meet those clinical challenges prepared and head-on. Each year in our emergency departments we care for a variety of patients, including those with snake envenomations, dive injuries, hyper- and hypothermia, frostbite, trauma in the wild, arthropod envenomation, and more.
Beginning in July of 2025, the department will be expanding its educational offerings within wilderness medicine by adding a post-graduate fellowship in wilderness medicine. The Rescue and Wilderness Medicine fellowship will be a 1-year fellowship for board-eligible emergency medicine residency graduates. This fellowship takes advantage of our local environment and experiences abroad and is based in the core principles of wilderness medicine. It includes hands-on, real-life experiences in dive medicine pathology, altitude illness, race medicine, wilderness toxicology, and expedition medicine. A primary focus for the fellow is to prepare them for practice as a capable medical provider in rescue within austere settings. The fellow will gain formal certifications as technicians in scuba diving, high and low angle rescue, swiftwater rescue, and avalanche medicine, with an option to gain additional training in trench rescue and confined space rescue. The fellow will be an active, responding member of local and state rescue teams, rescue HEMS, and will have the opportunity to work with the USFS. The fellow will also enjoy ample opportunity to engage in educational and research pursuits. The fellow will also be supported in pursuit of competence within the recreational activities germane to outdoor activities.
We also recognize that an understanding of wilderness medicine is important for the development of well-rounded students of medicine. Subsequently, our department sponsors a popular two-week elective in wilderness medicine for fourth year medical students, and offers a wilderness medicine track to our residents. In addition, residents have the option to participate in a wilderness medicine elective and have support and mentorship for research projects within the field. There is a special interest in envenomation from local snake species, and residents have produced clinical guidelines and publications within this field. Regular didactic time is given for wilderness education during resident conferences, and the department is actively involved in teaching other residency and fellowship training programs. We work closely with several community partners with active interests in the outdoors. The department also sponsors a wilderness medicine intensification day for graduating medical students and a separate wilderness medicine day for new interns. We offer an annual wilderness life support course, which is attended by individuals from across the nation. Our dedication to education has allowed our training program to successfully mentor and match several residents into wilderness medicine fellowships.
Our faculty are engaged in a variety of wilderness medicine activities and pursuits. They are all very active in the outdoor community and support environmental, recreational, and outdoor medical initiatives. We are affiliated with wilderness rescue organizations throughout the Southern Appalachia, and share in the training of rescue personnel throughout the region. On our faculty you will find climbers, bikers, through-hikers, and divers. From active status as certified technicians on dive and special rescue teams, to medical directorships with the United States Forest Service, to wilderness research, our department covers the gambit of possibility in the region. With all we have to offer, the future wilderness medicine enthusiast can find a welcome home here in the Greenville region.
Reach out to us – we’d love to show you around the best medicine the Upstate has to offer – the great outdoors.
Faculty:
Nathaniel Mann, MD, DiMM, FAWM
Mark Pittman, MD, FAWM
Adrien Mann, PA-C
USC School of Medicine Greenville students enjoy a rainy-day hike on their wilderness medicine elective.
First year residents get a taste of what a wilderness patient extraction looks like as they work a low-angle rescue in high-consequence terrain.
Dr Mann teaches a group of medical students about layers in a snowpack and avalanche risk in the backcountry of Colorado.
Residents learn about tick-borne illness during a break from practicing rock climbing basics at the local crag.