Carolina Wilderness EMS Externship

We are so excited to announce our 2026 Carolina Wilderness EMS Externs!

MD-79, Riley Warlick, is a rising fourth year medical student at Michigan State University's College of Osteopathic Medicine in East Lansing, Michigan. She is our first Extern who was raised locally here in and around Burke County!

MD-80, MIkayla Bradley, is a rising fourth year medical student at Western University of Health Sciences's College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific Northwest in Lebanon, Oregon.

We are thrilled to have Riley and Mikayla joining our program. The Externship starts this year on August 30th... watch this page for ongoing posts about their adventures!


Ping Western Piedmont Community College // UNC Health Blue Ridge // North Carolina State Parks // Wake Forest University // Michigan State University // Western University of Health Sciences

Registration is now available for the 2026 Carolina Wilderness EMS Summit, being held September 26-27 in Pisgah National Forest, Burke County, NC!


Ping Western Piedmont Community College // UNC Health Blue Ridge

Match Day is one of our favorite days every year at the Externship, when we get to hear where our Externs match each year! We get to start their year with them and learn and support their aspirations, and Match Day feels like the end of that process and the fruition of their efforts. We could not be more proud to share that MD-78 Nate Barott (EX25) has matched at Maine Medical Center! This is an amazing program and such a perfect match for Nate’s passions and skills.
This was our first international year, and MD-77 Al Hussein Soliman (EX25) is on a different international pathway so was not in the Match process but is also crushing it post-Externship.

Being the pilot extern was such an epic month that my call sign has been permanently assigned to me. If you know any medical student or resident that will be a medical student or resident in September, please let them know about this.
Feel free to reach out to me or the famous Seth Hawkins for more information.

We're very excited to announce that the application to select our 2026 Carolina Wilderness EMS Externs is now live! Deadline for submissions is April 1. Participants in our program often cite the Externship as the "best month of medical school" (or residency), and we do feel we are succeeding in training the wilderness EMS leaders of the future. Please share this application information widely on your socials, and specifically with anyone who you think would be a great match for our training!

Application and more information is here:
www.hawkventures.com/externship/apply

Apply Carolina Wilderness EMS Externship: How to Apply The 2026 Externship rotation will run August 30-September 27, 2026. The application period for the 2026 season is now open. The 2026 Carolina Wilderness EMS Externship application is available here. All applications are due by April 1, 2026. Note t....

We're very excited to announce that the application to select our 2026 Carolina Wilderness EMS Externs is now live! Deadline for submissions is April 1. Participants in our program often cite the Externship as the "best month of medical school" (or residency), and we do feel we are succeeding in training the wilderness EMS leaders of the future. Please share this application information widely on your socials, and specifically with anyone who you think would be a great match for our training!

Application and more information is here:
www.hawkventures.com/externship/apply

Apply Carolina Wilderness EMS Externship: How to Apply   The 2026 Externship rotation will run August 30-September 27, 2026. The application period for the 2026 season is now open. The 2026 Carolina Wilderness EMS Externship application is available here. All applications are due by April 1, 2026. Note t...

-: CWEMSE Day 11 :-
[9/4 posted 9/19]
Today’s Travel: 2346 km
Total Travel*: 7077 km
Knot of the Day: frost knot
Arabic Word of the Day: la - لا

A huge travel day today. ran a tutorial on deinflating tires after some obligatory coffee. We visited Corolla Fire-Rescue and learned about beach and coastal EMS and were there as Nightingale Air Ambulance out of Norfolk landed to transport a critical patient out of Currituck County… many of their critical patients need this transport platform due to their remote location. Then we hit the beach and drove up to the famous Station 7, where all care is delivered by dune-adapted 4WD ambulance and all roads are beach or sand. After learning about this unique operational environment we had a final celebratory dinner to wrap up the Coastal Module. We got MD-77 a Philly cheesesteak (introducing him to American food has been a high point of the rotation for sure as we are all foodies!)… he liked that but somehow was less impressed by what we perceived to be SO MUCH SAND over the last few days. Then we launched on the improbable trek all the way back to Morganton as the sun set over us. !

total course travel distance to date for , , & , including by foot, car, rock climbing, canoeing, motorboat, ferry, 4WD beach response vehicle, state park ATV, dune ambulance, and rappelling and ascending rope.

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-: CWEMSE Day 10 :-
[9/3 posted 9/19]
Today’s Travel: 141 km
Total Travel*: 4731 km
Knot of the Day: water knot
Arabic Word of the Day: naeam - نعم

We headed further up the Outer Banks to meet with Dare County EMS and orient to their system, which is one of the few on the East Coast to run and staff their own helicopter! Our lessons about how technology is used here are at “the edge of the world” helped refute the older teaching that remote or wilderness EMS is necessarily “resource deficient”. We moved on from Dare County to Jockey’s Ridge State Park. This is the site of the largest living sand dune on the East Coast and is an environment rich for unique wildmed needs. The Externs and Fellows delivered three in-service topics to the rangers, and then got a tour by ATV of their operational environment. The park also has frequent lightning strikes, forming fulgurites in the sand (the last picture is us exploring this phenomenon). Our night ended with a “Night At The Museum” sleeping at the Visitor’s Center there.

total course travel distance to date for , , & , including by foot, car, rock climbing, canoeing, motorboat, ferry, 4WD beach response vehicle, state park ATV, and rappelling and ascending rope.

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We at want to acknowledge the imminent passing of — a fixture for us on our and one of the Good Things In The World. But it is a applied anthropological teaching that we should accept changes in our world as a given. This closure will hit particularly hard as the most local among us… please be gentle with him over the next few weeks as this loss is likely to remain raw for a while.

-: CWEMSE Day 9 :-
[9/2 posted 9/19]
Today’s Travel: 404 km
Total Travel*: 4590 km
Knot of the Day: mooring knot
Arabic Word of the Day: ma’ - ماء

Another ferry and another near miss in catching it! But we made it and spent the short ride to Hatteras and the main Outer Banks doing pushups and feeding our brains with more teaching. On arrival to Hatteras we toured the amazing (every year we are more amazed by their versatility and excellence) and went on beach patrol with them, including visiting the famous Diamond Shoal where the Labrador and the Gulf Stream converge and looking out over the . From there we visited the historic Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station, learning about the “iron men” precursors to the modern Coast Guard, followed by a visit to the US Coast Guard itself, at Station Oregon Inlet. There we learned about (and toured) the incredible 47’ self-righting surfboard and heard about their operations over the years and current capabilities. From there we headed on to our next campsite, again right on the Atlantic Ocean, where we had the famous shrimp and grits, with shrimp fresh from the fisherman-owned — friends don’t let friends eat imported seafood!

*total course travel distance to date for , , & , including by foot, car, rock climbing, canoeing, motorboat, ferry, 4WD beach response vehicle, and rappelling and ascending rope.

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