Wilderness Medicine Faculty

Program Director 

Leah Manchester, MD, FAWM, DiMM

Dr. Leah Manchester joined Baystate in 2021, after finishing her Emergency Medicine residency and a Wilderness Medicine Fellowship at Yale. During that time she taught Wilderness First Aid and Advanced Wilderness Life Support to a variety of different audiences. She also completed her Diploma in Mountain Medicine, which included crevasse rescue training and a summit of Mount Baker in Washington, high angle rope rescue techniques, and AAIRE level 1 certification. She also pursued additional rope rescue training through Rigging for Rescue in Ouray, Colorado, focusing on high-angle small teams and partner rescues. She also completed her search and recovery and underwater navigation specialty scuba certifications in San Pedro, Belize. She is currently a medical director for the Berkshire Mountain Ski Patrol and a member of the Berkshire Mountain Search and Rescue team.

In her free time Leah enjoys climbing, hiking, backpacking, kayaking, and scuba diving. She has particular interests in wilderness toxicology and survivalism. While she was raised in central Massachusetts and considers New England as home, she enjoys traveling to new places and spent over a year backpacking around the world after graduating college.

Benjamin Church, DO, FAWM

Dr. Ben Church completed his wilderness medicine fellowship at Baystate in 2018. During his fellowship year he spent 3 months working at the high altitude clinic in Nepal with the Himalayan Rescue Association, volunteered part-time with the Berkshire East ski patrol, received his AIARE I and Avalanche Rescue certifications, published a case report in the Wilderness and Environmental Journal on backcountry AEDs, and taught Advanced Wilderness Life Support as an instructor in the Adirondack mountains.

Dr. Church's main academic interests include high altitude illness, cold weather medicine - including frostbite and hypothermia, and the use of medical technology in the backcountry.

His personal passion lies mainly in backpacking, especially lightweight backpacking. He has backpacked extensively both nationally and internationally, including the 100 Mile Wilderness and Allagash River in Maine, Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, New Zealand’s south island, Iceland, the Na Pali Coast in Hawaii, and National Parks, such as Grand Tetons, Zion, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Glacier, and Canyonlands. He has summited the tallest peak in every New England state, and in October 2016 he completed the notorious death march of the Presidential Traverse in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

Sarah Kleinschmidt, MD, FAWM, DiMM

Dr. Kleinschmidt began her medical career as a Wilderness-EMT in Moab, Utah, a backpacking guide in New England, Utah and Alaska, a program director for Farm and Wilderness Camps, and a senior field instructor for wilderness therapy programs. She has been teaching WFR and WFA classes for NOLS Wilderness since 2008, and has been at Baystate Wilderness Medicine since 2021. She is passionate about endurance physiology, mountain medicine and heat illness, completing her Diploma in Mountain Medicine through WMS and nearing completion of her FAWM. She has also merged her other interests as the Education Chair for Wilderness Medical Society's Justice Education Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She works clinically as the Regional Chief at Baystate Noble Hospital, and enjoys hiking, climbing, trail running, mountaineering, open water swimming and all forms of skiing.

Adriane Wurzl, DO, FAWM, DiMM