Faculty & Instructors

Stephanie is an emergency medicine physician at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke Virginia and Associate Professor at the VT-Carilion School of Medicine. She completed a Wilderness Medicine Fellowship at Georgia Health Sciences and completed her EM residency and medical school at Wake Forest University. She is the Wilderness Medicine Fellowship Director at VT-Carilion.
Stephanie earned the Fellowship of Wilderness Medicine and Diploma in Mountain Medicine. She the secretary of the WMS Board of Director, is part of the WMS DiMM Faculty. She served as a director for the WMS Student/ Resident Elective in Virginia for 10 years and is currently the director of the VTC/Radford WM Student Elective.
As a medical student, she co-founded the Southern Student Wilderness Medicine Conference. She is a past president of the Appalachian Center for Wilderness Medicine.
Her research interests include injuries in endurance mountain biking races, the effectiveness of high fidelity simulation in wilderness medicine education, student WM elective curriculum and Lyme disease within SW Virginia.
She is a certified Level 4 Swift Water Rescue Instructor through the ACA. She is an AWLS course director and instructor. She is also a WFA and CPR/AED instructor through ECSI. She is also a dive physician through UHMS/NOAA. She volunteers as an instructor for local EMS.
Outdoors, Stephanie enjoys mountain biking, sailing, rock climbing, skiing, horseback riding and SCUBA diving.

CJ completed a combined emergency medicine and family medicine residency at Jefferson Health Northeast in Philadelphia, PA before becoming a formal Wilderness Medicine Fellow at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, VA.  In medical school, he completed an honors track that involved continuous additional training in Rural and Wilderness Medicine in Colorado.  He is very active in education and maintained interested in teaching within his residency and with medical students, having served as a resident director for the WMS student elective.  During his fellowship, he completed his FAWM through the WMS, continued training with the military mountain medicine DiMM, did scuba training, and enjoyed fostering safety and medical training through teaching and training others.  He has previously worked in outdoor settings including a Colorado ski resort and a Hawaii ocean sports tour company and continues to enjoys outdoor sports in a multitude of settings from mountains to marine, frontcountry to backcountry: splitboarding, mountain biking, rock climbing and sailing.  Continued topics of interest and development include: hypothermia, race/event medicine, wilderness/technical rescue with Fire EMS, working toward a Master Diver and completing a second DiMM through the WMS.

Alex is a PA who graduated from Elon University in 2017. He worked with a hospitalist service in Grand Rapids, MI for several years prior to moving to Roanoke. His interest in the outdoors and first aid began in Boy Scouts on his journey to earning his Eagle Scout in 2005. He graduated from the VCT wilderness medicine fellowship in 2022 and earned his FAWM the same year. Skiing has been a lifelong passion of his and as a member of the National Ski Patrol, he continues his ski patrol service while in Virginia. He is a member of the Scruggs Public Safety Dive Team and is certified as an underwater criminal investigator (UCI).  Alex is the WFA director for BRAM.

Josh is an Emergency Medicine Physician. He works as clinical faculty with the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Emergency Medicine Residency. He is fellowship trained in Wilderness Medicine and has completed his Diploma in Mountain Medicine Certification. He volunteers as medical director for multiple ultramarathon trail races, is a certified level IV Swift Water Rescue Instructor for the American Canoe Association, and is a member of the local EMS Scuba Dive and Rescue Team. In his free time, he enjoys whitewater kayaking, trail running, mountain biking, scuba diving, and adventuring with his family and friends.

Michael Caudell, MD, FACEP, FAWM, DiMM is a Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, where he formerly served as the Medical Director for Wilderness & Survival Medicine and was the founder of the Wilderness Medicine Fellowship. Dr. Caudell is one of the founders of MedWAR (Medical Wilderness Adventure Race), serves as the Executive Director for the annual Southeast Race and serves on the Board of Directors for North American Educational Adventure Racing (NAEAR). He is a Past Chair of the American College of Emergency Physicians’ (ACEP) Wilderness Medicine Section and Past Chair of the Fellowship Directors Committee. Dr. Caudell served 2 terms on the Board of Directors for the Wilderness Medical Society (WMS) and is also a former chair of the WMS Education Committee. He remains active in the WMS, as Course Director for WLS-MP pre-conferences, Past-Chair of the Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee, and as a member of the Education Committee and its GME Fellowship subcommittee. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine (FAWM). He currently serves as a Section Editor for Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Wilderness & Environmental Medicine journal (WEMJ). Dr. Caudell is Past President and served on the Board of Directors for the Appalachian Center for Wilderness Medicine (ACWM). He has earned his Diploma in Mountain Medicine (DiMM) along with certifications in Level I Swiftwater Rescue, SCUBA Advanced Open Water, Mixed Gas and Rescue Diving, and is an instructor with Blue Ridge Adventure Medicine.

A former river guide, Henderson McGinnis is a Professor of emergency medicine at Wake Forest University. He is the medical director of AirCare, Wake Forest University’s air medical service. Henderson served on the Board of Directors for the Appalachian Center for Wilderness Medicine. He is a novice at most outdoor activities and instead of getting better at these activities he just adds more activities to his list of potential adventures. Given his  desire to be active outside he has a vested interest in promoting wilderness medicine education and medical support through BRAM.

Rich is currently an Emergency Medicine Nurse Practitioner at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke Virginia, a Paramedic, a graduate of the Carilion Clinic Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP) Emergency Medicine Fellowship, and currently in the Carilion Wilderness Medicine Fellowship working towards his Diploma in Mountain Medicine (DiMM). Rich obtained his nursing degree at Colorado Mesa University, and his Advanced Practice Registered Nursing degree at Colorado State University Pueblo. He worked as a professional firefighter paramedic and high angle rescue instructor, Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) instructor, backcountry ranger, ski patroller, and as a professional river guide in Maine and Nepal. Rich also worked as a professional outdoor adventure photographer for 18 years. He is a lifelong outdoor adventure enthusiast having participated in and organized climbing and whitewater expeditions across Asia, South America, Europe and North America.

Shefali Shah is a family medicine physician that graduated from Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) in 2019. She was the family medicine fellow for the VTC Wilderness Medicine Fellowship in 2022-2023. She loved all the knowledge she gained so much during that year that she decided to stay on as faculty for the fellowship. She now works as a Float Pool Physician for VTC Carilion Clinic, traveling between all 40 of Carilion's outpatient clinics in South-Western VA. She has earned her Diploma of Mountain Medicine (DiMM) with WMS and has almost completed her Fellowship in Academic Wilderness Medicine (FAWM). She has visited over 30 countries and enjoys a variety of outdoor activities, including skiing, SCUBA diving, sailing, backpacking and rock climbing.