The WMed Department of Emergency Medicine offers a fully accredited, one-year fellowship in Emergency Medical Services with up to three slots available each year. Our curriculum is divided among four broad categories: Didactics, Administration, Prehospital, Clinical.
Drs. Joshua Mastenbrook and Kimberly Avery (EMS Fellowship alumna) at the Michigan International Speedway NASCAR race to learn firsthand about mass gathering prehospital medical care operations, logistics, and planning. This is one of several annual EMS fellowship field trips.
Fellowship conference / M&M / Case Review / Journal club - 3 hours weekly
Yellowstone National Park case review - monthly
Statewide fellowship journal club - 2 hours quarterly
NAEMSP Textbook provided digitally
Emergency Medicine conference - 2-5 hours weekly
Simulation lab - 3 hours per month
Summer wilderness medicine day
Winter wilderness medicine day
EMS Day - scenario based skills, decon, vehicle extrication
Basic Disaster Life Support and Advance Disaster Life Support Courses
ICS 300 and 400
County dive team exercise at Gull Lake
Dispatch Centers field trip
State of MI EMS Office field trip
NREMT Fellow Conference - annually
NAEMSP Medical Directors Course and Annual Meeting
Great Lakes Homeland Security Conference - annually
North American Active Assailant Conference & CONTOMS Course - annually
SaveMiHeart Conference - annually
Michigan Systems of Care Conference - biannually (odd years)
Teaching Medical Student Medical First Responder Course
Teaching opportunities - EMS classes at Kalamazoo Valley Community College
WMed is uniquely positioned to provide high-quality EMS medical control services to Yellowstone, despite the distance.
Kalamazoo County Medical Control Authority PSRO - monthly
Kalamazoo County Medical Control Authority EMS Council - monthly
Ongoing MCA QA and QI projects
Kalamazoo County Fire Chiefs Association - monthly
Kalamazoo County HazMat eBoard - monthly
Kalamazoo County Child Death Review - monthly prn
Region 5 MCA Network - monthly
Region 5 Trauma Network - quarterly
State of Michigan QA Task Force - monthly
State of Michigan EMS Coordinating Committee - bimonthly
MCEP EMS subcommittee - monthly
Yellowstone National Park EMS education/QA/QI/Protocol revision - one week each during August and April/May onsite in the park.
Great Smokey Mountains National Park education - three days each spring onsite in the park
Indiana Dunes National Park education - one day each spring onsite in the park
MSU-2 at the scene of a motor-vehicle crash in Kalamazoo County.
EMS home-call - 48 hours weekly - Flexible scheduling
Scene responses, Kalamazoo and Yellowstone EMS consults
Mass gathering experiences: Kalamazoo Marathon, Michigan International Speedway NASCAR race, Western Michigan University football and hockey games, Kalamazoo K-Wings Hockey games, Electric Forest music festival, Faster Horses music festival
Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety Special Response Team
Michigan Region 5 Tech Rescue Team
Serve as supervisor for the residency field response program
iPad - FirstNet wireless plan - ePCR, navigation, dispatch
EMS polo, hi-vis vest, hi-vis jacket, and helmet
Field response program integrated into the county EMS system with strong partnerships with dispatch, fire, police and EMS. Kalamazoo County 911 monitors and dispatches our physician response vehicles. Here is an example of a medical call we were dispatched to (MSU-1 stands for Medical Support Unit-1 and is one of our physician response vehicles):
Faculty, fellows, and residents from the Department of Emergency Medicine provide 24/7 medical control consultations and direction for Yellowstone National Park.
Faculty, fellows, and residents from the Department of Emergency Medicine provide 24/7 medical control consultations and direction, assist with on-site continuing education, and participate in a robust quality improvement program for Yellowstone National Park through a collaboration with Dr. Will Selde. Dr. Selde completed his residency training at WMed in 2013 and now serves as the EMS Medical Director for Yellowstone, the world’s first national park. As one of only two Emergency Medicine residency programs in the nation to maintain a 24/7/365 resident-staffed EMS response program, WMed is uniquely positioned to provide high-quality EMS medical control services to Yellowstone, despite the distance.
Pictured is our WMed EMS Physician response vehicle in Yellowstone National Park.
A disaster preparedness drill at the Kalamazoo-Battle Creek International Airport.
Our fellows actively engage in regional and state disaster preparedness activities and get the chance to plan, implement and evaluate exercises with various federal, state, and local agencies, as well as hospital systems, private companies, and volunteer organizations.
Fellows get to attend the 5th District Medical Response Coalition bimonthly meetings which host representatives from the nine counties in Southwest Michigan. Coalition members represent hospitals, EMS, emergency management, public health, long term care, tribes, and other healthcare/human service organizations.
WMed serves as the statewide coordinating organization for the National Disaster Life Support (NDLS) Program in Michigan. Our fellows complete Basic and Advanced Disaster Life Support Courses and have the opportunity to become NDLS instructors.
As part of our mass gathering component of the curriculum, our fellows participate in the planning, logistics, and medical operations at the Kalamazoo Marathon, the WMed MFR Capstone Day, and Western Michigan University football games, Additional mass gathering events: Michigan International Speedway NASCAR raceday, music festivals, MI-TESA, and regional full-scale exercises.
Our fellows respond to mass-casualty incidents within Kalamazoo County and neighboring jurisdictions. Some previous examples include, a tour bus vs. semi-truck collision, large apartment fires, a 190+ vehicle pileup on I-94, and multiple symptomatic carbon monoxide exposures at a local greenhouse.
Dr. Joshua Mastenbrook poses for a photo with two Emergency Medicine residents during a shift in Emergency Department.
Our fellows work approximately 40 hours a month as attending physicians at our two regional tertiary care centers – Beacon Kalamazoo and Bronson Methodist Hospital -- to help maintain emergency medicine clinical skills. Both facilities are ACS-verified Trauma Centers, STEMI Centers, and Comprehensive Stroke Centers. Bronson serves as the region's burn center and pediatric hospital. Beacon maintains the local in-patient psychiatric ward. Our WMed students and residents rotate at both hospitals. Fellows serve as the supervising attending physician for our learners while on shift in the EDs. Together, these facilities see over 160,000 Emergency Department visits annually.
Additional teaching opportunities are found at the local community college's emergency medical services program as well as in WMed's 25,000 square-foot simulation center, which opened in the summer of 2014 and is one of the largest in the Midwest. EMS fellows have full access to the center to hone their own skills and to instruct students, residents, and emergency medical services personnel.
Drs. Joshua Mastenbrook, Alex VanWoerkom (EMS fellow), Stephanie Van Alsten, and Bill Fales shared their prehospital cardiac arrest research at the National Association of EMS Physicians' Annual Meeting.
Our goal is to help you develop outstanding research skills by providing opportunities and resources to cultivate these skills. WMed employees have access to an immense collection of electronic databases, journals, and textbooks. Our team of medical librarians, data managers, biostatisticians, and IRB staff help to facilitate the research process.
WMed coordinates Michigan’s EMS Information System and houses the state EMS Data Manager. This means our fellows have access to more than 10 million EMS records and can conduct research under an ongoing state Health Department IRB-approved project. Fellows are also invited to join current faculty projects or develop a new project. Our department has successfully secured over $14 million in state and federal grants and is one of the few institutions to receive multiple EMS for Children Targeted Issues grants.
We encourage our fellows to attend and present at the annual meeting of the National Association of EMS Physicians. WMed provides financial support for travel expenses for presentations at regional, state and national meetings.
Fellows can take vacation during any block.
Fellows receive 28 days (20 weekdays, 8 weekend days)
Includes PTO for board exams
Includes PTO for job interviewing
Fellows select an additional one day for a "personal holiday"
