Wednesday Jan 20

Wilderness Medicine Winter Workshop: Survival and Rescue in the Winter Environment

Join us for an immersive, hands-on experience at the Wilderness Medicine Winter Workshop, set against the stunning winter backdrop of Vermont's iconic Smugglers' Notch. Designed for healthcare professionals and outdoor enthusiasts alike, this workshop invites participants to expand their skills in wilderness medicine under the expert guidance of seasoned wilderness medicine and rescue professionals.

Learning is grounded in the real: actual rescues from the local mountains provide the backdrop for instruction, with a deliberate focus on simulation as the primary teaching tool. Participants will practice field management and prevention of hypothermia and frostbite, shelter building, equipment selection and preparation, and winter travel safety. Real-world scenarios recreate the unique challenges of delivering medical care in remote, snowy environments, so that concepts learned in the field translate directly to the backcountry.

The workshop takes place outdoors near the conference center, and participants are welcome to bring their own survival equipment for testing or practice. Beyond the skills, the day offers the chance to connect with fellow attendees who share a passion for outdoor adventure and emergency medicine.

Hands-On Ultrasound-Guided Regional Anesthesia: Upper and Lower Body Nerve Blocks for the Emergency Provider

Ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia is a high-value skill for emergency physicians, particularly in rural settings where transfer times may be prolonged and anesthesiology support is limited. Effective regional techniques reduce reliance on systemic opioids, an especially important consideration for the elderly patients who sustain proximal femur and hip fractures, in whom repeated opioid dosing while awaiting surgery or higher-level care can contribute to delirium. Beyond the lower extremity, upper extremity blocks offer comparable benefit for the management of forearm, wrist, and hand injuries and procedures commonly encountered in the emergency department. The importance of these skills for emergency providers is widely recognized, perhaps most strongly evidenced by the explicit inclusion of the fascia iliaca plane block in the new American Board of Emergency Medicine certification exam. Yet for practicing providers in rural settings, opportunities to acquire and maintain these skills are often scarce.

Airways - Stories from the ED @ Stowe Cider Taproom

This workshop combines a brief didactic session with hands-on skills stations. The brief introductory lectures cover relevant sonoanatomy, distribution of analgesia, ultrasound-guided technique considerations, hydrodissection and anesthetic volume selection, review of the supporting literature, and LAST recognition and management including the role of lipid emulsion therapy. The information obtained in the lecture is then discussed and review in small group hands on stations with ultrasound faculty.

We all have stories. Airway is an organization dedicated to helping doctors reflect and build community through storytelling. For over a decade, we have held events for emergency physicians around the country, in small local venues and at national conferences.

Airway collects and showcases stories from doctors from around the world. Come join us for a relaxed social outing at Stowe Cider! Enjoy great company and the opportunity to connect with colleagues in a fun and informal setting (families welcome). We hope to see you there!

Sameer Sethi, MD, FAWM, DiMM is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine and a graduate of the University of Vermont Wilderness Medicine Fellowship. He practices emergency medicine throughout the University of Vermont Health Network, with a particular focus on rural and critical access hospitals, where he enjoys the unique clinical challenges and broad scope of practice that come with caring for underserved communities.
Originally from Toronto, Canada, Dr. Sethi discovered his passion for the outdoors while pursuing his education and training across the world. His professional interests have taken him from expedition medicine on the Juneau Icefield in Alaska to high-altitude medicine on Mount Aconcagua in Argentina. Outside the emergency department, he enjoys mountaineering, scuba diving, and learning new outdoor skills.
Dr. Sethi teaches wilderness medicine CME courses with Wild Med Adventures, volunteers as a physician at Sugarbush’s Three Peaks Medical Clinic, and serves on Camel’s Hump Backcountry Rescue.

Dr. Peter Weimersheimer is an emergency physician with 30 years of clinical and POCUS experience. He is committed to transforming health care, especially in resource limited settings through adoption and implementation of POCUS. He focuses on developing sustainable and successful Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) programs, curriculum design, and hand-on training. Dr. Weimersheimer completed his emergency medicine residency at Boston City Hospital/Boston Medical Center. He is Professor Emeritus of Emergency Medicine (EM) at the Larner College of Medicine (LCOM) at the University of Vermont. He was the founder and Director of the University of Vermont (UVM) Emergency Ultrasound Program, UVM EM Residency POCUS curriculum, UVM TEE resuscitation program, a 4th year medical student POCUS elective, LCOM integrated 4-year medical school curriculum, and UVM EM nurse/tech POCUS-guided IV program. He developed advanced airway management practices, procedural sedation policy, and a ED US-guided regional anesthesia program. Awards included UVM EM Residency Teacher of the Year and UVM Surgery Excellence in Trauma Care. Dr. Weimersheimer was the UVM Health Network Director of Clinical Ultrasound. He developed global POCUS credentialing and practice standards for that system and for other clinical specialties. He was the VP of Clinical Implementation and Education for Butterfly Network. He is a faculty member of the Global ultrasound Institute (GUSI) and a professor in the Remote Ultrasound Fellowship. He lectures, teaches, and supports POCUS adoption to advance health care internationally.
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I am an assistant professor of emergency medicine at UT Health Houston having completed my residency and ultrasound fellowship there. Working in a tertiary referral center with easy access to ophthalmology consultation exposes us to a great deal of ocular pathology, but having worked in the community for a short while makes me understand the difficulties that can come with uncertainty over which conditions can be safely managed outpatient vs absolutely need to be transferred. I have given a version of this talk to our residency with great reception.
Dr. Nicolas Heft is a Board-Certified Emergency Medicine physician and the co-founder and Fellowship Director of the Space Medicine program at the University of Texas Health Science Center. He earned his medical degree from Florida Atlantic University College of Medicine and completed his Emergency Medicine residency at the University of Texas.
Additionally, Dr. Heft has served as a Flight Surgeon in Mission Control, supporting crews bound for the International Space Station.
Dr. Heft is a graduate of the United States Air Force Special Warfare Medical Officer course and a certified Diver Medical Technician. He has submitted multiple experiments for orbital missions and contributed to the development of the medical framework for parts of NASA's Artemis program.

12:30 - 15:30

1700 - 1900

Thursday Jan 21

Coaching Uphill: An Introduction to the Fundamentals of Coaching

Ash Weisman is a plain jane rural emergency doc with an academic side job. She completed her residency in the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency, and fellowship in wilderness medicine and rural health leadership at Massachusetts General Hospital. She loves every sort of emergency medicine practice and has worked in busy community, tertiary academic, rural critical access, and remote arctic village ERs throughout her career. She currently practices rural, community, and academic EM in the University of Vermont Health Network. Her career goal is to improve emergency care by building bidirectional educational and operational bridges between tertiary centers and rural hospitals. Her life goal is to link rural ER shifts with family mountain adventures.
Katie graduated from the University of Vermont College of Medicine in 2010. She completed her Emergency Medicine residency at Maine Medical Center in 2013 and her fellowship in Primary Care Sports Medicine at the Maine-Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency in 2014. She worked at multiple hospitals in Maine and Colorado before returning to the University of Vermont Medical Center’s Emergency Department in November, 2016.
Katie’s passions in medicine are twofold. Clinically, her interest lies at the intersection of emergency medicine, sports medicine, wilderness medicine, and pre-hospital medicine/EMS. Her second area of interest is medical education, both at the undergraduate and graduate medical levels, and in particular in the advising of medical students around the transition to residency.
Katie is the Assistant Dean for Students at the Larner College of Medicine and former course director for the emergency medicine course and the sports medicine elective. She is the Medical Director for the Vermont City Marathon and an annual medical volunteer for Ironman Lake Placid.
In her free time, Katie enjoys running, cycling, alpine and cross country skiing, and spending time with her husband and two children.
Dr. Vicki Zhou is an Assistant Professor and Associate Residency Program Director at the University of Vermont. She is a medical educator with a particular interest in physician well-being, as well as trainee mentorship and coaching. Outside of work, she is the proud mom of a baby boy and a very spoiled dog.
Katie’s passions in medicine are twofold. Clinically, her interest lies at the intersection of emergency medicine, sports medicine, wilderness medicine, and pre-hospital medicine/EMS. Her second area of interest is medical education, both at the undergraduate and graduate medical levels, and in particular in the advising of medical students around the transition to residency.
Katie is the Assistant Dean for Students at the Larner College of Medicine and former course director for the emergency medicine course and the sports medicine elective. She is the Medical Director for the Vermont City Marathon and an annual medical volunteer for Ironman Lake Placid.
In her free time, Katie enjoys running, cycling, alpine and cross country skiing, and spending time with her husband and two children.
Adam Bloom, DO is Program Director of the Emergency Medicine Residency Program at the University of Vermont's Larner College of Medicine, where he is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine. He has been involved in EM education since 2016, progressing from chief resident to Assistant Program Director and then Associate Program Director at his previous institution before joining UVM. Prior to his academic career, Dr. Bloom served as a military physician with multiple deployments to combat zones. His clinical and educational interests include rural and critical access emergency medicine, evidence-based medicine pedagogy, and resident assessment systems.

Do you feel like it is an uphill battle to provide effective guidance to medical students and residents during training? Coaching in medical education is a valuable method for faculty to support trainees. Coaching skills are not intuitive and are infrequently taught. Rather than simply correcting mistakes or telling trainees what to do, coaches utilize curious listening, structured questioning, and dynamic feedback to develop lifelong learning and self-assessment skills in coaches. The guidance and self-reflection fostered from coaching relationships can result in better performance as trainees transition to master adaptive learners and take ownership of their own education and career trajectory. Coaches serve as trusted and active guides. The development of an effective coaching program can confer significant benefits in medical student and resident education, clinical performance and well-being.

This unique, interactive workshop will get you outside on skis or snowshoes while gaining an introduction to the fundamentals of coaching in medical education. We find that coaching is more effective with movement rather than powerpoint, and we suspect you will too. Participants will learn in a small group setting from UVM Emergency Medicine Faculty Coaches, who have been trained with a formal intensive, structured coaching program. As we skin or snowshoe up the mountain, the session will review the principles of coaching and the core differences between passive mentoring and academic medical coaching. This will be followed by practice role-playing scenarios where participants identify medical trainee challenges in clinical competency and/or wellbeing and address them through coaching. As we glide back down to the trailhead, UVM Faculty Coaches will share their experiences starting a novel coaching program, discussing best approaches and techniques for program implementation at participants' own departments and institutions.

Difficult Airway Workshop: A Hands-On, Multi-Station Approach to the Airway You Fear

Daniel Ackil, DO, FAAEM is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Assistant Dean for Simulation at the University of Vermont (UVM) Larner College of Medicine (LCOM). Prior to joining the faculty at UVM, he completed an emergency ultrasound fellowship at Denver Health / University of Colorado and a 4-year emergency medicine residency at Kent County Hospital in Warwick, RI. He earned his DO degree from the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine and his BA from Wesleyan University. His areas of academic interest include medical education, resuscitation, high acuity low occurrence (HALO) procedures, ultrasound, and competency based assessment.
Laura Mulvey, MD, is an Attending Physician in the University of Vermont Health Network and serves as the Clerkship Director for the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Larner College of Medicine. Dr. Mulvey is dedicated to advancing medical education, fostering clinical excellence, and mentoring the next generation of emergency physicians. Her work integrates high quality patient care with innovative teaching, curriculum development, and a commitment to improving the learning environment for medical students and trainees.
Sam Paskin, MD is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont. Sam started working at UVM as a laboratory research technician while completing his bachelor’s degree and has returned to his alma mater as faculty after completing his residency training at Denver Health. He splits his clinical time between academic and community practice and serves as the Director of Simulation and Procedural Education for the UVM Emergency Medicine Residency.
I am an emergency physician and medical intensivist by training, and regularly practice in both environments. I teach the management of alcohol withdrawal at my institution to residents, fellows, and students. I also have lectured nationally at ACEP and AAEM on the topic of alcohol withdrawal and the use of phenobarbital. At my institution I was responsible for designing and educating the use of phenobarbital protocols in several alcohol withdrawal.

The unanticipated difficult airway remains one of the highest-stakes challenges in emergency and acute care medicine, where preparation and deliberate practice make the difference between a controlled intervention and a crisis. This hands-on workshop brings participants through a series of focused skill stations, each led by experienced airway faculty, designed to build competence and confidence across the full spectrum of difficult airway management.

Participants will rotate through dedicated stations covering fiberoptic intubation, surgical front-of-neck access, the pediatric airway, and difficult airway strategy. Each station pairs practical, repeated hands-on practice with expert coaching, allowing participants to refine technique, troubleshoot common pitfalls, and develop a clear cognitive framework for decision-making under pressure.

1230 - 1530