Fellowship Director
Welcome from the Fellowship Director
In our fully accredited, one-year EMS Fellowship program, our fellows are able to take advantage of extensive opportunities in prehospital and disaster medicine. These include emergency medical services administration, education, field response, mass gathering event medicine, medical oversight, operations, and specialty team responses such as HazMat, SWAT and Tech Rescue. Kalamazoo County has a population of approximately 250,000 and is a referral center for the region, serving over 1 million people. Our EMS System is described as a high-performance, single-tier private ALS system with countywide fire-based BLS first responders. We have two tertiary care hospitals within Kalamazoo. Bronson Methodist Hospital is a Level 1 Trauma Center, Burn Center, STEMI Center, Comprehensive Stroke Center, and houses our pediatric hospital. Beacon Kalamazoo is a Level 2 Trauma Center, STEMI Center, Comprehensive Stroke Center, and houses our psychiatric hospital. Our WMed Emergency Medicine Residents staff both hospital Emergency Departments. Our fellows serve as junior faculty for the emergency medicine residency program.
The educational experience at WMed is dynamic, comprehensive and enhanced by a response vehicle that is allocated solely for fellows. This allows for efficient scene response and quality improvement activities. Through the hard work and dedication of our EMS personnel and a highly effective EMS system design, cardiac arrest survival rates in Kalamazoo County are among the highest in the nation.
The Kalamazoo County Medical Control Authority is housed within the Department of Emergency Medicine at WMed, and is statutorily responsible for the coordination and oversight of the EMS system. Our EMS Fellows serve as Assistant EMS Medical Directors. This system integration allows for close interaction and education among fellows, medical school faculty, residents, students, and staff.
Faculty
Our diverse faculty have unique niche interests, skills, and experience in air medicine, disaster preparedness, hazmat and fire service operations, tactical emergency medical services, mass gathering event medicine, rural and wilderness medicine, education, and system operations, among others.
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Dr. Hoyle serves as the Associate EMS Medical Director for Pediatrics for Kalamazoo County and is the current David Overton Endowed Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine. He also is a core faculty member for both the residency and fellowship programs. Dr. Hoyle is quadrupled boarded – EM, PEM, Peds, EMS. He is an accomplished researcher with more than $1 million in grant funding, with a focus on prehospital pediatric management. Dr. Hoyle continues to maintain his prehospital skills by responding to scenes within the county with our residents and fellows.
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Dr. Fales serves as EMS Medical Director for Kalamazoo County, core faculty member (past program director) of the EMS Fellowship program, and as core faculty within the residency program. Dr. Fales served as the past Regional Medical Director for Healthcare Preparedness, continues to serve as Medical Advisor to the Michigan State Police Emergency Support (Tactical) Team, Bomb Squad, and Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division, and is the State of Michigan EMS Medical Director, Bureau of EMS, Trauma and Preparedness. Active at both the state and national levels, he serves as faculty for the National EMS Medical Directors Course. Dr. Fales has extensive experience in healthcare preparedness, homeland security, and disaster response.. Residents with a high level of interest in EMS use Dr. Fales as a mentor during residency and as a resource after graduation. A former paramedic and firefighter, Dr. Fales frequently responds to EMS incidents throughout the county.
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Dr. Mastenbrook serves as the EMS Medical Director for Allegan County and Associate EMS Medical Director for Kalamazoo County. He is the EMS Fellowship Program Director, Associate Program Director for the residency, EMS elective director, and EMIG faculty advisor. Dr. Mastenbrook has served on a number of regional and national committees, including the EMS Milestones 2.0 writing committee, the State of Michigan Trauma Advisory Committee, MI-TESA Operations Group, the Michigan SaveMiHeart Conference planning committee, Region 5 Medical Control Authority Network (chairperson), Region 5 Trauma Professional Standards and Review Organization (chairperson), and the Kalamazoo Community Research Symposium planning committee (co-chairperson). As a current paramedic and firefighter, he still actively serves his community responding to calls for service in addition to responding to calls within the county as an EMS physician.
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Dr. Van Alsten serves as the EMS Medical Director for Calhoun County and Indiana Dunes National Park, Associate EMS Medical Director for Kalamazoo County, the Associate Program Director for the fellowship program, and core faculty for the residency program. She is a graduate of our EMS Fellowship program and still responds to prehospital scenes as an EMS physician to maintain her skillset.
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Dr. Joyce is an emergency medicine physician and clinical assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Joyce graduated from our EMS fellowship program in 2025 and currently serves as the EMS medical director at BHS-Memorial Hospital in South Bend, Indiana.
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Dr. Krohmer serves as the chairman of the Michigan Prehospital Blood Transfusion Program Committee and one of our core faculty for the EMS fellowship program. He is the former Director of the NHTSA Office of EMS in the Department of Transportation, former emergency medicine residency Program Director in Grand Rapids, and former EMS Medical Director for Kent County EMS.
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Dr. Selde serves as the EMS Medical Director for Yellowstone National Park, Director of EMS at US Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, and is one of our faculty for the fellowship program. He has earned his paramedic and firefighter certificates and has served his community as a volunteer firefighter. Dr. Selde has served as the chairperson of the air medical committee within the NAEMSP organization and occasionally writes articles for JEMS.
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Michael Bentley serves as the Director of the Division of EMS and Disaster Medicine. He is one of our fellowship core non-physician faculty members. Michael is a former paramedic and hold an EMS Instructor-Coordinator license.
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Judy Wheeler, MPM, serves as the Director for the NDLSF program within the state of Michigan, Coordinator for our American Heart Association courses, and Director of our M1 Medical First Responder course. She is one of our fellowship core non-physician faculty members. Judy is a former paramedic, QA manager, and holds an EMS Instructor-Coordinator license.
