Center for Exploration and Travel Health at the California Academy of Sciences

About the Center

Private Consultations

Private consultations are available on a limited, appointment-only basis. Please call Dr. Matthew Lewin (415-425-7892) or Ms. Sunita Rao (415-999-5475) to make arrangements for a consultation.

CETH Occasional Notes

Hearst Expedition April-June 2011

 

The most important project our Center for Exploration and Travel Health has been working on the past five months is the Hearst Expedition to the Philippines. Apart from academic projects, preparations for small and large scale expeditions requires research into hazards found in both urban, rural and marine environments. Emphasis is placed on vaccination, malaria prophylaxis, availability of medical resources, natural hazards, diarrheal diseases and trauma. All expedition members are urged to see their personal physicians and dentists well in advance of departure.

 

News & Media

  • When emergencies happen in remote settings, field researchers can be left with little recourse. The Field Medic

 

  • Academy research associate Matthew Lewin’s life and work are a bit on the extreme side. Watch his featured exhibition "The Extreme Side of Life."

 

  • Local doctors have recently returned from Haiti where the disaster continues. See Science in Action here.

CETH Research Publications

CT Scans for Dinosaur Eggs and Spinal Cord Injury: One Technique Led to the Other

CT Scan Imaging of Spinal Cord Injury

CT Scan Imaging of Fossilized Dinosaur Egg

 

Neglected Tropical Disease: Noma

Noma: A case of necrotizing stomatitis

 

Climate and Catastrophic Illness

 

Expedition Medicine

Illness and Injury During Travel to Arid Environments

 

 

 


Who We Are: CETH Physicians and Researchers

Matthew Lewin, MD, PhD, FACEP

Director, Center for Exploration and Travel Health

Fellow, California Academy of Sciences

 

Dr. Lewin is an internationally recognized expert in the practice of emergency medicine and wilderness medicine. He has served as doctor on major scientific expeditions sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History, the Field Museum, Kellogg Foundation and National Geographic funded scientific expeditions. He is the author of several book chapters in leading texts on wilderness medicine and is a regular contributor to major, peer-reviewed publications such as Annals of Emergency Medicine, Lancet, Journal of Emergency Medicine and Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, among others. He is a life-member of the Wilderness Medicine Society and in 2010 became a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians in recognition of his academic accomplishments in the field. He was director of Emergency Medicine Research at UCSF from 2003 until 2009. He is Associate Editor of Updates in Emergency Medicine. He is a popular invited speaker on his research and clinical interests in wilderness and pre-hospital medicine worldwide having lecturing on a regular basis at national and international meetings in Europe and Asia. Since 2008, he has been the California Academy of Sciences emergency medicine liaison to UCSF. He has played an active role in developing and testing protocols for the safe handling and first aid of Academy and Aquarium employees potentially exposed to poisonous animals housed on Academy grounds and on display to the public.

 

Toby O. Salz, MD

Board Certified in Emergency Medicine

 

Dr. Toby Salz is a Board Certified Emergency physician with expertise in general emergency medicine, travel, expedition and disaster medicine. He is a graduate of Chicago Medical School and the Alameda County Medical Center, Highland General Hospital emergency medicine residency program affiliated with the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. He has worked in a diversity of challenging environments such as Chiapas, Mexico, Ecuador and the U.A.E.'s regional Rashid Trauma Center located in Dubai. Most recently, he served as Medical Director of the Emergency Department and ICU of Hôpital de L'Universite D'Etat D'Haïti during two medical missions to post-Earthquake Haiti. Dr salz remains committed to the well-being of Haitians and to supporting quality healthcare in Haiti. He is in the midst of co-founding a non-profit organization that will ultimately place its focus on treatment of patients affected with tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and cholera in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

 

Dr. Salz is a key collaborator of the Center for Exploration and Travel Health. Current research interests and upcoming expeditions include the 5 Gyres Institute's survey of the Southern Pacific Gyre in partnership with Pangea Explorations. He will be providing medical support to the crew and research staff while studying the impact of phthalates on pelagic birdlife. Other academic interests include ultrasound in the disaster setting, treatment of drug resistant infections and methods of improvisation during emergency situations in resource poor environments.

 

In Hei Hahn, MD
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Board Certified in Emergency Medicine and Toxicology

Noah Weiss, MD
Novato Community Hospital
Board Certified in Orthopedic Surgery