The mission of the Wilderness Medicine Interest Group is to focus on the practice of resource-limited medicine in austere environments. The skills of wilderness medicine are applicable to any setting defined by the use of limited equipment and extreme environmental conditions: from remote wilderness settings, to developing world outposts, to urban disaster settings.

The Wilderness Medicine Interest Group aims to:

• Develop and disseminate academic wilderness medicine educational and research content to the SAEM community through a variety of forums including the SAEM annual meeting, SAEM newsletter, SAEM social media, and the interest group website.
• Promote community academic engagement through regular virtual events including: a regular journal club, fireside chats with leaders in the field, a standing book club, and panel discussions on careers in WM.
• Increase knowledge dissemination within the interest group to promote:
  1. collaboration among members
  2. partnerships with other wilderness medicine organizations
  3. partnership with the SAEM climate change interest group to jointly explore the impact of climate change on public health
  4. nurturing of future leaders within the field through mentorship, scholarship and networking
• Disseminate information about and solicit applications from GME wilderness medicine  programs to be reviewed by the SAEM fellowship committee.
• Continue to explore growth towards academy status, including member recruitment to meet stated membership quotas, as well as dissemination of benefits of academy status to wilderness medicine interest group members. Goal is to vote on advancement towards academy status within the next 1-2 years. 

Chair: Luke Apisa, MD
Vice Chair: Joshua Timpe, MD
Board Liaison: Michael DeFilippo, DO, MICP
Staff Liaison: Holly Byrd-Duncan, MBA
Staff Liaison: Kar Corlew