The Department of Emergency Medicine sponsors an ACGME-accredited EMS fellowship for board-eligible candidates. Our program combines ground, aeromedical and tactical EMS exposure with advocacy, administrative, research, and leadership activities that are found at no other program in the U.S. Graduates leave Madison as highly-trained medical directors with the knowledge, vision, and passion to change the way modern healthcare is delivered.
Our program trains physicians in medical direction for ground transport, disaster preparedness, event medicine, tactical EMS, advocacy, QA/QI, and prehospital research. By immersing the fellow in an incredible variety of experiences and allowing time for exploration of individual interests, graduates are fully prepared to lead exceptional medical oversight of pre- and out-of-hospital emergency care systems with advanced competencies in EMS system design, administration, and clinical care.
Graduates of our program are also well-prepared to pass their ABEM EMS board certification upon completion of the fellowship.
The UW EMS Section provides medical direction for several agencies in Dane County, Wisconsin. We directly contract with police, fire, EMR and paramedic services staffed by volunteer and professional responders. Fellows interface with EMS and disaster medicine leaders while engaging with a variety of local EMS systems.
» Our Areas of EMS Expertise
Physician Field Response, Prehospital Simulation, Advanced Physician Education, EMS Provider Education, Tactical EMS & Event Medicine, Disaster Preparedness, EMS Advocacy/Coordination, Limited Access Procedures
» Compensation & Benefits
The fellow will be compensated at the PG 4 annual stipend rate established by the Graduate Medical Education Office at UW Health. The fellow will also receive additional CME funds to complete their emergency medicine board certification, attend conferences, and enhance their educational experience based upon their specific interests.
Program Details
Available Positions: 1
Program Length: 1 year
Start Date: July 1, 2024
Deadline to Apply:
Sept. 15, 2023
Accreditation: ACGME
NRMP Match: Yes
Appointment:
Clinical Instructor
Clinical Hours:
Avg. 6 shifts/month
Moonlighting: Available
Fellowship Curriculum & Experiences
The core component of the UW EMS fellowship is practical experience with ground transport EMS services. The fellow will be scheduled to perform ride-alongs, online and offline medical oversight, QA/CQI activities, and EMS advocacy at the local and state levels for 35-40 hours per week. This experience will provide the fellow with comprehensive, hands-on experience in ground transport of patients of all ages and with multiple skill levels of providers, including physician response vehicle coverage.
The operational experiences are supplemented with administrative, academic, and research components. The EMS fellow participates in the NAEMSP Medical Director Course, serves on county- and/or state-wide committees, publishes research in EMS journals, and teaches all levels of providers in Dane County. Our affiliation with the UW School of Medicine and Public Health provides access to unparalleled clinical researchers and educators. In addition, the fellow may participate in air medical transport depending upon the level of candidate interest and availability.
The fellow will also be responsible for developing and implementing complex field simulations and quality improvement and process development initiatives, including in-situ simulation, in conjunction with UW EMS faculty, as well as delivering lectures on EMS topics, developing residents’ skills during prehospital elective rotations, and participating in community training and outreach.
While exceptionally robust, the fellowship is still flexible enough to allow time for self-directed projects. There are opportunities for experiences with law enforcement, the UW Emergency Education Center, and the UW Simulation Center. The culmination of this fellowship will be an EMS physician who is qualified to be a leader in prehospital medicine. The graduating fellow will also be well-suited to pass their ABEM EMS subspecialty board certification upon completion of the program.
Program Highlights & Resources
Program Highlights
- Access to the UW ALS Consortium network consisting of 6 EMS agencies with more than 200 prehospital providers
- Exposure to tactical EMS / high-risk law enforcement events
- Opportunities to work in the areas of disaster preparedness/response and mass gathering events
- Robust curriculum, teaching, and simulation training, including 140+ hours of didactics and 60+ teaching hours with paramedics and EMS providers
- Protected non-clinical time for the fellowship curriculum with an average of 6 shifts per month
- Support to attend the NAEMSP Annual Meeting and Medical Directors course, as well as courses through the Center for Domestic Preparedness
- Dedicated EMS quality and patient safety clinical care groups
- Robust mentoring and feedback, including regular contact with the fellowship director and program faculty
- Dedication support staff to assist fellows in administrative tasks and coordinate operational programs for the section
- Access to a 7,500 sq. ft. newly renovated clinical simulation facility at University Hospital that is staffed by a dedicated team of knowledgeable simulation educators.
Physician Response
Our program employs two physician response and outreach vehicles staffed 24/7 by a rotation of prehospital physicians.
We fly three EC-145 physician-staffed helicopters through our Med Flight HEMS service, which has served the upper Midwest for over 35 years and logs more than 2,200 total transports per year. Learn more about UW Health Med Flight »
The Department of Emergency Medicine also operates a mobile simulation ambulance (BADGER-3) in coordination with the UW Health Clinical Simulation Program.
Prehospital Research
The Fellow may also develop a research project that contributes to the advancement of EMS education and patient care. The Department of Emergency Medicine is a recognized leader in our specialty, ranking competitively among the top academic departments of emergency medicine for National Institutes of Health research funding, according to the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research. DEM currently conducts ongoing prehospital research in paramedic-coached ED care transitions among older adults, informatics, and the nationwide Cardiac Arrest Registry for Enhanced Survival (CARES).
With active programs in basic, clinical and public health science, the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health has a tradition of pioneering research, receiving $439 million in research funding in 2019-20. It has also consistently ranked among U.S. News and World Report’s best medical schools for primary care and research. Grants obtained by SMPH faculty constituted 41% of total grants to UW–Madison during 2019-20.
EMS Faculty & Staff
The University of Wisconsin Section of EMS is comprised of passionate, motivated and dedicated physicians whose goal is to bring the highest level of care to all patients who are served by the UW. We achieve this through provision of EMS Service Medical Direction, Leadership, Advocacy and Educational Initiatives for all levels of field and in-hospital providers.
Our prehospital faculty have a wide breadth of interests, and provide unique mentorship opportunities for fellows with diverse interests, including medical direction, tactical medicine, critical care transport and retrieval, airway management, ECMO and pediatric EMS. Our faculty are also active in the EMS community beyond UW, with representation at local, regional, and state-level EMS leadership committees.
This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.
Michael Mancera, MD, FACEP, FAEMS — Fellowship Director
Michael Mancera, MD
Fellowship Director
Associate Medical Director, EMS
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine
Board certified in EMS
Contact: mmancera@medicine.wisc.edu
Dr. Mancera completed his Emergency Medicine Residency at Michigan State University in Grand Rapids and an EMS fellowship at the University of Indiana. He serves as Medical Director for several EMS agencies in Dane County and is a member of the State of Wisconsin Physician Advisory Committee. His interests include out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and prehospital education as driven by quality assurance efforts.
Dr. Mancera was recently named to the Citizen CPR Foundation’s 40 Under 40 list, which aims to highlight individuals around the globe who have made significant contributions to measuring sudden cardiac arrest outcomes, improving care, and saving lives. Dr. Mancera became interested in sudden cardiac arrest preparedness and survival during his emergency medicine residency when while he was resuscitating a patient who had suffered a cardiac arrest, he came to a stark realization that changed the course of his career: that many of the critical events leading to the successful return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) in the patient had occurred before the patient ever arrived at the hospital.
Spurred on by his resolve to improve lifesaving outcomes, Dr. Mancera championed the implementation of the Cardiac Arrest Registry for Enhanced Survival (CARES) throughout the local and county EMS system. This national registry allows EMS systems to collect and analyze out-of-hospital cardiac arrest data and compare it to national benchmarks, allowing for local quality improvement efforts and benchmarking capability to improve care and increase survival. In the five years following the implementation of CARES, area out-of-hospital cardiac arrests have seen continuous improvement.
Dr. Mancera has also helped to develop and teach High-Performance CPR techniques for EMS providers and has delivered numerous EMS training sessions and lectures to local EMS partners. He is also passionate about training the next generation of EMS medical directors and serves as the inaugural director of the accredited EMS fellowship program at the University of Wisconsin.
Michael Lohmeier, MD, FACEP, FAEMS
Michael Lohmeier, MD
EMS Section Chief
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine
Board certified in EMS
Dr. Michael Lohmeier completed his emergency medicine residency at Washington University in Saint Louis and subsequently stayed for an EMS fellowship. He holds board certification in emergency medicine and EMS and is a fellow of both the American College of Emergency Physicians (FACEP) and the Academy of Emergency Medical Services (FAEMS).
AS EMS Section Lead and Medical Director for the UW Health Emergency Education Center, Dr. Lohmeier is dedicated to improving EMS education for all levels of learners, from first responders through critical care paramedic, resident and EM faculty physicians, as well as peer EMS physicians from around the United States. He has worked extensively with emergency medicine and trauma physicians to enhance the skills and knowledge of our staff in order to help them successfully navigate the universal relationship that EM has with the EMS system and field providers. His areas of interest include EMS and prehospital care, mass casualty preparedness, fireground rehab, and resident education.
Dr. Lohmeier is medical director for Sun Prairie and Waunakee EMS services and one of three medical directors currently serving on the Dane County Emergency Management Joint Medical Advisory Board.
Megan Gussick, MD
Megan Gussick, MD
Assistant Medical Director, EMS
Clinical Assistant Professor
Board certified in EMS
Dr. Gussick completed her emergency medicine residency at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and subsequently stayed for an EMS fellowship. She is currently a clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Wisconsin Department of Emergency Medicine and serves as Medical Director for the Madison Fire Department and Dane County Tactical Team, as well as a flight physician with UW Health Med Flight. She is the lead physician for medical student EMS education initiatives, works with our nation’s veterans at Madison’s VA hospital, and has a strong interest in tactical emergency medical services.
Michael Spigner, MD, EMT-P
Michael Spigner, MD, EMT-P
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine
Director of Prehospital Informatics
Board certified in EMS
Dr. Spigner has been continually involved in EMS since 2009 and has maintained a strong interest in prehospital medicine throughout his residency training at the University of Cincinnati (UC) and served as the Assistant Medical Director for several agencies in the Greater Cincinnati area. While at UC, he practiced as a flight physician, served as the Assistant Medical Director of UC Air Care & Mobile Care, and was a team physician for Cincinnati Police Department SWAT. He has served multiple national leadership roles with the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association (EMRA) over five years and chaired EMRA’s Prehospital and Disaster Medicine Division from 2017-2018.
He completed EMS fellowship training at the University of New Mexico (UNM) from 2020-2021, during which time he served as Assistant Medical Director with the UNM EMS Consortium, which provides medical direction for more than 30 agencies, including Albuquerque Fire-Rescue and numerous rural, tribal, National Park Service, and law enforcement partners. Dr. Spigner serves as the Director of Prehospital Medicine Informatics, as well as Medical Director for Belleville EMS and Brooklyn Fire & EMS.
Michael Kim, MD, FAAP
Michael Kim, MD
Pediatric EMS Lead
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine & Pediatrics
Dr. Kim is an associate professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his medical degree from the Chicago Medical School and completed his pediatrics residency at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He went on to complete a pediatric emergency medicine fellowship at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). He started his pediatric emergency medicine career at MCW, where he was promoted to associate professor. In 2007, he launched a pediatric emergency medicine program at UW Health as the chief and medical director of pediatric emergency medicine. His academic interest is focused on the advancement of pediatric emergency care locally and statewide within EMS services and emergency departments.
Dr. Kim is currently the pediatric EMS medical director for the ALS consortium and working to improve prehospital care for all children in Dane County through education and advocacy. In addition, he serves as the co-chair for the Wisconsin Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) to improve emergency care for children throughout the state. As a physician leader in acute pain management in pediatric emergency care, Dr. Kim has contributed to changing the culture of pain management for children with acute abdominal pain with a seminal publication in 2002. Since then, he has contributed many journal publications to improve acute pain management in the emergency department and prehospital setting for children. He is currently a co-investigator on a grant to improve pediatric care in community emergency departments in Wisconsin.
Megan Childers, MHA
Megan is Prehospital and Clinical Operations Director for the Department of Emergency Medicine and is also an EMT with Deer-Grove EMS. In addition to her academic pursuits, Megan is also a mom to a beautiful daughter and two rescue pups, Bella and Kona. When she’s not playing with them, she enjoys reading, volleyball, cross-stitch, and many other outdoor activities.
Phone: (608) 890-9119
Martina Steffes, NREMT-A
Martina serves as Operations Coordinator for the Division of Prehospital Medicine, as well Coordinator for the Division’s EMS & Med Flight fellowship programs.
Phone: (608) 262-1445
Prior Fellows
This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.
Katherine Darr, MD (2021-2022)
Dr. Katherine Darr obtained her medical degree from Loyola Stritch School of Medicine, where she graduated Cum Laude. She then completed her residency in Emergency Medicine at Detroit Receiving Hospital, where she served as chief resident. Her clinical interests include event medicine, disaster preparedness and teaching in the prehospital setting. Some accomplishments during her EMS fellowship include:
– Presented 20 lectures to prehospital providers
– Associate Medical Director position with a local EMS agency
– Flight physician with UW Health Med Flight
– Provided medical direction for multiple events, including three UW Badgers home football games.
– Participated in the NAEMSP Medical Direction Overview Course, Annual Meeting and Quality and Safety Course
– Participated in the Center for Domestic Preparedness Hospital Emergency Response Training (HERT) course and became a clinical instructor for FEMA
– Participated in the FDNY Medical Special Operations Conference
– Worked with multiple special prehospital teams, including Dane County Tactical EMS and the City of Madison Fire Department Dive Team
Dr. Darr is currently an Emergency Physician and EMS Medical Director at Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee, IL.
Emily Fleming, MD (2020-2021)
Dr. Fleming obtained her medical degree from Loyola Stritch School of Medicine, where she graduated Cum Laude, and completed her residency in emergency medicine at the University of Wisconsin. Her academic/clinical interests include teaching, both in the academic and prehospital settings, and leading prehospital provider teams. Some accomplishments during her EMS fellowship include:
– Presented 30 lectures to prehospital providers
– Creation of an abstract around EMS curriculum for emergency medicine residents, which resulted in an oral presentation at UW-Madison’s Medical Education Day
– Participation in the NAEMSP Medical Direction Overview Course and Annual Meeting
– Associate Medical Director position with a local EMS agency
– Completed a one-week Tactical EMS training course at the U.S. Army Fort McCoy
Dr. Fleming is currently an emergency medicine physician with Illinois Emergency Medicine Specialists.
How to Apply
Applications must be submitted through the process outlined below. Note: our fellowship program participates in the NRMP Match process.
Candidates must be a BC/BE physician having graduated from an accredited Emergency Medicine residency program. Applications for the 2023-2024 academic year are due by September 15, 2022.
Applications must include the following materials:
- Completed EMS Fellowship application form
- Current CV
- Three (3) references, one of which must be the applicant’s Residency Program Director
- One (1) letter of recommendation. Letters should be emailed directly from the letter writer to Martina Steffes at mmsteffes@medicine.wisc.edu
- Personal statement detailing why your interest in pursuing an EMS fellowship at the University of Wisconsin
For questions or to express interest in the EMS fellowship, please contact our Martina Steffes at mmsteffes@medicine.wisc.edu.