Christopher Van Tilburg, MD

I grew up adventuring all over the world. After visiting several dozen countries and living for a year in Europe, I earned a BS in Science Communications from University of Portland. After another year of traveling around the world, I attended University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. I trained in family medicine and worked in emergency and urgent care medicine for 15 years.

I specialize in wilderness, occupational, emergency, and travel medicine. I’m a Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine of the Wilderness Medical Society (WMS) and hold a Certificate of Travel Health from International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM).I have a clinical practice at Providence Occupational and Travel Medicine in Hood River, Oregon. I work as a medical expert witness, author, public speaker, and editor.

I’m currently working on Adrenaline Junkies Bucket List due out in June 2013 by St. Martins Press. I serve as Editor-in-Chief of NewsShare and communications for International Society of Travel Medicine and Editor Emeritus of Wilderness Medicine magazine. I frequently write for Backcountry, Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, and Portland Monthly.

I travel all the time. In the last few years, I completed the ski mountaineering epic, Haute Route, from Chamonix, France, to Zermatt, Switzerland. I lead a medical team to Haiti with my good friends at Medical Student Missions (medicalstudentmissions.org). I taught wilderness and travel medicine to doctors on the Inca Trail in Peru and on the Mont Blanc Circuit in the Alps. I skied with my family in the unbelievably scenic Andes at Portillo, Chile. Next year, I’m headed to Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with Wilderness and Travel Medicine (wilderness-medicine.com), to Maastrich, the Netherlands with the International Society of Travel Medicine (istm.org), and back to Haiti.

I’m a strong believer in community volunteering: locally to globally. I volunteer with youth soccer, with school curriculum committees and with the legendary Hood River Crag Rats, the first mountain rescue unit in the country.

I work as a medical legal consultant in primary care and outdoor medicine, specifically family practice, rural emergency medicine, urgent care, midlevel providers, and pre-hosptial care. I also consult frequently in hypothermia, heat stroke, avalanche injury, deep snow and tree well submersion asphyxiation, cruise ship medicine, and other topics.

I frequently give keynote talksto medical and general audiences, most notably Anatomy of a Search: Lessons from Mountain Rescue and Mountain Rescue Doctor: Balancing Passion and Profession. I frequently talk on deep snow and tree well submersion and avalanche safety.