Sarah Spelsberg

Bio Wilderness Medicine Magazine Associate Editor and Expedition Medicine Column Editor Dr. Sarah Spelsberg graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, MD from Saint James School of Medicine, and completed emergency Medicine Residency at UNC Health Southeastern. She is a Senior Associate Consultant and Assistant Professor in Emergency Medicine and Orthopedics at Mayo Clinic Florida. She is an emergency medicine and wilderness medicine physician, and former rescue medic, whose three-decade career has spanned the frontlines of both urban trauma care and the planet’s most remote landscapes. She is the Director of U.S. Operations for World Extreme Medicine, Medical Lead for Project NEPTUNE 100, and part of the medical team for the filming of an adventure reality TV show. She holds the designations FAWM (Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine) and FEWM (Fellow of Extreme and Wilderness Medicine). Dr. Spelsberg began her medical career as a search and rescue medic and ambulance provider in Telluride, Colorado, before earning her PA-C and serving over a decade in orthopedic surgery at Mayo Clinic, where she holds the rank of Assistant Professor. She later completed her MD and transitioned to emergency medicine, working clinically in both high-acuity hospitals and remote Alaskan clinics, including the IFHS Clinic on the island of Unalaska/Dutch Harbor, hub of the Deadliest Catch fleet. She currently serves on the FAWM Committee and as Expedition Medicine Column Editor for Wilderness Medicine Magazine. Her writing includes peer-reviewed articles, medical education book chapters, and field case reports, and she is the author of the wilderness medicine blog Rogue Medical. She has assisted in high-risk medevac operations in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, including missions flown on U.S. Coast Guard C-130s and helicopter platforms. An engaging speaker and educator, Dr. Spelsberg is also a podcast host and frequent guest for World Extreme Medicine, where she shares insight from her fieldwork in marine, tropical, and hyperbaric medicine, as well as wilderness trauma, orthopedic injury, and rescue logistics. Her research focuses on the physiology of undersea habitation, marine envenomation and incidence of adverse shark encounters, biometric monitoring in extreme environments, and medical improvisation in austere environments. She continues to contribute to global health innovation through lectures, publications, and educational content including partnerships with Butterfly Point-of-Care Ultrasound, and Trauma gel. Most recently, Dr. Spelsberg spent three months in the Fijian Islands serving as one of the physicians on the World Extreme Medicine medical team. Her work sits at the intersection of adaptability, resilience, exploration, and medicine on the edge and her writing brings readers directly into that world