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Bringing the WEM26 experience into view…
Three days of medicine, challenge and connection
From the moment you arrive at Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh, from 14th – 16th November 2026, you’ll step into an environment built for curiosity, conversation and real-world learning. WEM26 brings together global voices, practical workshops, bold ideas and cross-disciplinary insight that stays with you long after the event ends.
Expect powerful talks, hands-on sessions, honest discussion and a community of people pushing medicine beyond the ordinary.
Your WEM26 weekend, day by day
From hands-on workshops and mountain medicine to humanitarian care, rescue systems, endurance performance, offshore medicine and pre-hospital practice, WEM26 is designed to help you build a weekend that fits your interests.
Here’s a snapshot of how the big weekend is shaping up so far.
Day 1 • Saturday 14th November
A practical, high-energy start to the weekend
Saturday opens WEM26 with a strong mix of rescue, expedition medicine, endurance performance, remote systems thinking, and hands-on workshops designed to get you straight into the action.
- Wilderness dentistry, wounds & burns, and obstetric emergency workshops
- Applied rescue, extrication systems, stretcher skills, and expedition vehicle masterclasses
- Mountain medic careers, team doctor roles, and expedition medicine pathways
- Biosphere sessions including HACE, performance under pressure, and stories from a life in the wild
Day 2 • Sunday 15th November
Innovation, resilience, big ideas and a legendary evening
Sunday expands the programme further, bringing together innovation, humanitarian thinking, psychological resilience, remote systems of care, endurance medicine, and more rescue-focused practical sessions, with the ceilidh energy helping make this one of the most memorable days of the weekend.
- Sessions on invention, uncertainty, and care beyond the hospital wall
- Humanitarian medicine, empathy, remote capability, and psychological challenge
- Alternative fracture management, marathon medicine, and advanced rescue workshops
- Biosphere sessions on ice swimming, shark bite rescue, high-altitude debate, and more
Day 3 • Monday 16th November
A sharper final day focused on practical takeaways
Monday closes the conference with a tighter focus on trauma, cultural awareness, pre-hospital care, offshore medicine, fracture management, and practical skills you can take back into real-world settings.
- Facial trauma, wounds & burns, and fracture management workshops
- Sessions on offshore cardiac and trauma care, cultural awareness, and austere clinical practice
- Pre-hospital careers panel and stretcher skills for real-world rescues
- Biosphere content including Journey to Ground Zero
The agenda will continue to evolve as we get closer to the event, with more sessions still to be added and some timings or content subject to change. This overview is here to give you a feel for the kind of weekend you can expect.
Many of our workshops require pre-registration due to room capacity and session format, so we recommend planning ahead once registration opens. That said, we work hard to ensure most attendees are able to access the sessions they’re most interested in.
All Biosphere sessions on the main stage are open to everyone and do not require pre-registration, so there is always somewhere to drop in, learn, and explore throughout the weekend.
Over 3 days, you’ll:
Learn pioneering techniques from visionaries pushing boundaries in extreme environments
Develop essential new skills hands-on, from expedition dentistry and wilderness first aid to SAM splinting
Connect face-to-face with hundreds of like-minded medics from around the world
Re-energise your career and have a blast at our famous ceilidh dance party
Collect CPD/CME while doing something unforgettable*
The voices shaping WEM26
From pre-hospital care and humanitarian response to expedition medicine, performance under pressure and systems leadership, WEM26 brings together a global line-up of clinicians, medics and specialists working in some of the most challenging environments on the planet.
These are the people shaping how medicine is practised when resources are limited, decisions matter, and there is no easy fallback. New speakers are being added regularly as the programme continues to evolve.
What people remember about WEM
The sessions matter. The workshops matter. The people you meet and the conversations you have in between matter too.
Here’s what past attendees had to say about their experience at the World Extreme Medicine Conference.
A look inside the WEM experience
A glimpse at the people, sessions, atmosphere and moments that make the World Extreme Medicine Conference what it is.
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