The BerbeeWalsh Department of Emergency Medicine offers a fellowship for physicians interested in Critical Care Transport and Retrieval Medicine with UW Health Med Flight. The fellowship prepares physicians to become effective helicopter EMS (HEMS) medical directors by combining hands-on flight experience with academic, administrative, and research training.
Founded in 1985, UW Health Med Flight is one of the nation’s most established and respected critical care transport services — and one of the few that has always flown with a physician-nurse-pilot team. Its long history and national reputation, paired with the University of Wisconsin’s fully accredited emergency medicine residency program, provide the foundation for this fellowship.
Fellows gain extensive flight experience, serving as the sole physician on nurse-pilot-physician teams. This firsthand perspective is critical for future medical directors to understand the unique challenges and capabilities of air medical transport. Many residents only receive limited or no flight exposure during training; this fellowship ensures deep experience in both patient care and the realities of flight operations.
In addition to flight duties, fellows build skills in program leadership, quality improvement, education, and research. Training includes administrative and academic components of both flight and emergency medicine programs at a major academic center. Fellows also attend Medical Director courses at the Air Medical Transport Conference (AMTC) and engage in collaborative research at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
Graduates leave prepared to lead HEMS programs or pursue additional training in ground EMS, ensuring safe, effective, and innovative care in the prehospital setting.
Compensation & Benefits
Our total rewards and employee services packages go beyond traditional benefits to help you balance your work and life needs. Packages include comprehensive health and supplemental benefits, a competitive salary, travel funds, and support to pursue education. Learn more about GME Compensation and Benefits 
Program Details
Available Positions: 2-3
Program Length: 1 year
Start Date: July 1, 2027
NRMP Match: No
Appointment: Clinical Instructor
Moonlighting: Available
“My fellowship taught me how to manage critically ill patients in environments where time, resources, and conditions are constantly working against you. I learned to think faster, adapt quicker, and trust both my training and my team. It also gave me a new appreciation for the prehospital side of medicine and how much happens before a patient ever reaches the emergency department.”
—Dana Darling, DO, 2025-26 fellow
About Med Flight
UW Health Med Flight has been a trusted leader in air and ground critical care transport across the upper Midwest for more than 40 years. Operating 24/7/365, the program completes more than 2,300 transports annually using three EC-145 helicopters and two critical care ambulances. Accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems (CAMTS), Med Flight is recognized nationally for providing one of the safest and most advanced transport services in the country.
Med Flight partners with FAA-certified Metro Aviation, Inc. to operate and maintain its aircraft and is among the few U.S. programs that routinely staff flights with a licensed physician alongside a nurse and pilot. Ground units are equipped as mobile ICU/NICU, and the program supports specialized extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) and Organ and Tissue Donation transport.
Fellows train alongside a multidisciplinary team of emergency physicians, critical care nurses, respiratory therapists, and other specialists. Our faculty are leading voices leaders in prehospital and transport medicine nationally. They also teach internationally and hold faculty roles with the U.K.’s renowned Anaesthesia Trauma & Critical Care (ATACC) Course, conduct research advancing prehospital care, lead prehospital informatics, and bring experience from world-class services like London Air Ambulance.
Med Flight is part of UW Health, the academic health system affiliated with the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Clinical operations are integrated with UW Health’s University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center, Certified Burn Center, Comprehensive Stroke Center, and Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) Center of Excellence. U.S. News & World Report has consistently ranked UW Health hospitals as the best in Wisconsin, underscoring the strength of the system supporting Med Flight and graduate medical education.
Fellowship Director
Ryan Newberry, DO, MPH, NRP
Assistant Medical Director, UW Health Med Flight
Assistant Professor
A native of northwestern Illinois, Dr. Newberry began his career as a firefighter/paramedic in Freeport and Rockford, Ill., and as a critical care flight paramedic with OSF LifeLine Helicopter. He attended the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army and completed emergency medicine residency at the San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium at Brooke Army Medical Center, followed by fellowships in EMS and Disaster Medicine.
Dr. Newberry is board certified in Emergency Medicine and EMS and has experience in both community and academic settings. During his military career, he remained deeply engaged in prehospital medicine, serving as program director of the Military EMS and Disaster Fellowship in San Antonio and as associate medical director for UT Health Emergency Health Sciences and the San Antonio Fire Department from 2016 to 2022.
Internationally, he was the first American to complete a flight physician fellowship with London’s Air Ambulance and the first international candidate to complete the U.K.’s Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT) selection course. A combat veteran, he deployed with U.S. Army Forward Resuscitation and Surgical Teams and served with the British Army.
In addition to his clinical and teaching roles, Dr. Newberry is active in research, with interests in advanced trauma care, cardiac arrest resuscitation, damage control resuscitation, and mass casualty response.
Current Fellows & Alumni
- Calvin Madsen, MD (2026-27)
- Michael Lawson, MD (2026-27)
- Dana Darling, DO (2025-26)
- Christian Hext, MD (2025-26)
- Megan Yank, MD (2025-26)
- Jesse Conterato, MD (2024-25)
- Matthew Heffernan, MD (2024-25)
- Mikko Sayre, MD (2024-25)
- Katherine Connelly, MD, DRTM (2023-24)
- Nicholas George, MD, DRTM (2023-24)
- Bryce Taylor, DO, MS (2023-24)
- Matthew Stampfl, MD (2022-23)
- Craig Tschautscher, MD, MS, DRTM (2022-23)
- Zachary Forcade, MD (2021-22)
- Madison Tustian, MD (2021-22)
- Allie Hurst, MD, MS (2020-21)
- Eric Ohlrogge, MD (2020-21)
- Jordan Imoehl, MD (2019-20)
- Nick Lepa, MD (2019-20)
- Britton Hopkins, MD (2018-19)
- Conrad Williamson, MD (2018-19)
- Brian Jennett, MD (2017-18)
- Andrew Cathers, MD (2015-16)
- Cynthia Griffin, DO (2014-15)
- Ashley Brown, MD (2012-13)
- Sabina Modelska, MD (2011-12)
How to Apply
Email your CV, a personal statement detailing your research interests and career aspirations, and 2-3 letters of recommendation to Dr. Ryan Newberry at rknewber@medicine.wisc.edu.
Candidates must have graduated in good standing from an ACGME-accredited emergency medicine residency program and must be board-certified or board-eligible in emergency medicine by the time of employment.
Please direct application process questions to:
Taylor Ungerer, MBA
Education Program Administrator
University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics
tungerer@medicine.wisc.edu