Dr. Michael Abernethy, a pioneer in air medical care who has flown with UW Health Med Flight since 1992, retires this April after 34 years — the longest continuous service of any emergency medicine faculty member at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
The clinical professor and chief flight physician has transported more than 4,000 critically ill and injured patients by air during his career, making him one of the most experienced helicopter emergency medical services, or HEMS, physicians in the world. He has also cared for more than 100,000 patients in the emergency department.
While Abernethy has held many roles — including emergency medical technician, military flight medic, engineer and astronaut candidate — he has always been motivated by the urgency, unpredictability and impact of caring for patients in life-threatening moments.
Decades later, that sense of purpose remains.
“I’m one of the lucky ones who knew early on that I wanted a career in emergency medicine,” he said. “It’s a profound privilege to be doing what I’m doing, and for as long as I have.”
A pioneer mindset, grounded in clinical practice and teaching
Throughout the 1990s, Abernethy helped develop emergency and prehospital care at UW, strengthening a growing specialty and raising standards for critical care transport across the upper Midwest.
He often noted that critical care begins long before a patient reaches the emergency department — a reality reflected in work that took him to roadsides, cornfields and community hospitals across the region. “I doubt there’s a five-mile stretch of interstate from northern Illinois to the Minnesota border where Med Flight hasn’t landed at one time or another,” he said.
Abernethy’s approach to patient care is rooted in duty and compassion, shaped by experience, training and a willingness to step into high-risk situations when others step back. In emergency and prehospital care, he said, that often means running toward emergencies while others run away.
He also stressed empathy across a wide range of cases, from trauma to chronic pain or addiction, encouraging colleagues to imagine what patients’ day-to-day existence is like.
When UW established its emergency medicine residency program in 2007, Abernethy joined the faculty full time and took on a central role in training junior physicians. His clinical teaching focused on decisive decision-making under pressure, teamwork and preparation for uncertain, resource-limited settings.
“Your best tool is your own judgment,” he told trainees.
He also helped launch one of the nation’s leading retrieval and critical care transport medicine fellowships and mentored generations of physicians who now practice in prehospital and critical care settings worldwide, including at UW.
“Dr. Abernethy taught me that being a great physician means staying steady in the chaos,” said Dr. Megan Gussick, an associate professor of emergency medicine and division chief of prehospital medicine who has worked with Abernethy for more than 15 years. “In those moments, teams look to you for guidance, and that steadiness leads to better outcomes.”
Abernethy’s approach to clinical care and teaching would extend far beyond UW.
Global voice and impact
Abernethy has visited or flown with HEMS programs in more than 10 countries and delivered more than 400 lectures across five continents, helping shape best practices in retrieval and transport medicine worldwide.
He was the first American faculty member on the internationally renowned Anesthesia, Trauma and Critical Care (ATACC) course in the United Kingdom, where he continues to teach and was recognized with the Outstanding International Faculty Award in 2018. He was also the first American to earn a Diploma in Retrieval and Transport Medicine from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and now serves as an examiner — a path many of his UW Med Flight colleagues have since followed.
His honors include faculty and fellow distinctions from the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland and Royal College of Surgeons of England, as well as the 2017 Distinguished International Air Medical Physician Award from the Air Medical Physician Association.
“Dr. Abernethy has been one of the most influential people in my career,” said Dr. Andrew Cathers, medical director for UW Health Med Flight and the second American to earn a DipRTM. “UW Med Flight ranks among the leading programs worldwide in retrieval and critical care transport, thanks in large part to the relationships he helped build.”
As the field evolved, so did the challenges facing it, particularly around how care is delivered and who delivers it.
Advocacy for prehospital care closer to home
When Abernethy took his first HEMS flight in 1989, most U.S. programs were physician-led and based in local hospitals — a model he would spend his career helping to preserve.
As many programs shifted to for-profit models without physician staffing in the early 2000s, Abernethy remained committed to a different standard grounded in clinical excellence and patient safety. From 2019 to 2024, he served on a federal commission examining unregulated patient billing in the air ambulance industry and remains a leading voice on private equity’s growing role in American HEMS.
Today, UW Health Med Flight is among the few air medical services in the United States to still fly with an attending physician on every transport. “It’s the highest level of care possible and the norm for HEMS programs in most developed countries,’ Abernethy said.
UW Health Med Flight has adopted and even led significant advances in the air medical industry, including technical innovations, more standardized physician training, stronger multidisciplinary teams and improved coordination with community and rural hospitals. Still, Abernethy said the core principles of patient care continue to guide the work despite decades of progress, reinforcing the value of physician-led care.
To colleagues and trainees, Abernethy’s legacy is defined as much by the standards he upheld as by what he accomplished, and which will endure long after he hangs up the helmet.
“Dr. Abernethy’s career embodies what we strive to be as a department,” said Dr. Manish N. Shah, professor and chair of the BerbeeWalsh Department of Emergency Medicine. “His leadership in prehospital and transport medicine, and his dedication to the integrity of the field, have left a lasting mark on the UW and on emergency medicine more broadly.”
What comes next
Abernethy has no plans to slow down. He will continue clinical work in the emergency department at Beloit Memorial Hospital, where UW emergency medicine residents train, and remain active as an international educator and lecturer in transport medicine. Just weeks after retiring, he will return to the U.K. to support the ATACC Course.
Despite a career that has taken him around the world, he remains grounded in the place where it began. At UW–Madison, he found a community that grew alongside the field itself.
“It’s been the highlight of my career to see emergency medicine at UW grow from a fledgling service into a world-class academic department,” he said. “I’m grateful to have been part of that journey.”