Appalachian Center for Wilderness Medicine


The Appalachian Center for Wilderness Medicine is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting wilderness medicine in the southern Appalachian region of the United States of America. Dr. Seth C. Hawkins, an emergency physician who specializes in EMS and wilderness medicine, founded ACWM in 2007 in the state of North Carolina. It is the first regional wilderness medicine non-profit of its kind in the United States. Contemporary authorities in wilderness medicine have noted its importance in establishing a mechanism for regionally pooling information and resources in a field that otherwise has little connection between local or regional experts. Critical to that effort have been uses of the internet in ways not previously seen in wilderness medicine.
At the time of its founding, ACWM served the American states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. With the Knob Creek Resolution of 2011, ACWM expanded to include Alabama, Maryland, and Kentucky.

Programs

Although its primary purpose as a non-profit is promoting communication and awareness of programs already in place, ACWM developed a number of programs of its own to fill holes in the region. Chief among them was an course and the ACWM Southeastern Student Wilderness Medicine Conference-–neither previously available on a regular basis in the southern Appalachians.

AWLS Course

has been recognized for its innovative use of high-technology medical simulation, using state of the art simulation mannequins in wilderness scenarios, as well as its role in attracting healthcare professionals into the nascent profession of wilderness medicine. The ACWM AWLS course was run continuously from 2007-2016 in southern Appalachian locations: in Linville Gorge NC from 2007-2009, in New River Gorge WV from 2010-2012, in Black Mountain NC from 2014-2015, and in Roanoke VA in 2016. In 2012 Outside Magazine cited the AWLS program as one of the top four wilderness medicine training programs in the United States.

Student conference

Over a thousand medical students and wilderness enthusiasts were introduced to wilderness medicine through the ACWM student conference. It used a novel organizational strategy, moving every year to a new medical school in the southeast. This strategy increased geographic access throughout the region and provided organizational experience for the medical students at each host school. In the summer of 2012, the conference became independent of the Center and is now run through as the . The Center promotes this independently configured conference as it does all quality wilderness medicine conferences in the southeast, also including the , the , and Wilderness Medical Society conferences in the region.
Past ACWM Southeastern Student Wilderness Medicine Conference locations:
2008:
2009:
2010:
2011:
2012:

Other programs and partnerships

In addition to its primary regional organizing function, ACWM has served as an incubator for other local and national programs, such as the Green EMS Initiative, a precursor to the . It has also served as a partner in multiple regional wilderness medicine and safety initiatives. These include partnership with the in Fayetteville WV and . ACWM staff have also provided instruction at multiple conferences and festivals, including the and the .

Mountain Laurel Award

The ACWM also sponsors the Mountain Laurel Award every year, which has been cited as the most prestigious wilderness medicine award in the southeastern United States. This lifetime achievement award is given to individuals or groups who have made “extraordinary, lasting and substantial contributions to wilderness medicine in the southern Appalachians.”

Mountain Laurel Award Recipients